Dear colleagues in forgiveness, I am grateful to you for the most satisfactiry experience I have had of facilitating this course thus far. In acknowledging the course's conclusion, I am leaving you with a forgiving perspective on the Holocaust that is absent from Wiesenthal's book, because the person who held it was among those who perished therein and has been largely forgotten, even though she left behind a collection of letters as well as a diary that some consider to be even more remarkable than Anne Frank's. Etty's diary concludes with the sentence, "We should be willing to act as a balm for all wounds." It seems impossible to be forgiving of such hellacious conditions in the midst thereof? Victor Frankl’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning, is evidence of such possibility, for it was during his own death camp experience that he gestated the transpersonal therapy (logotherapy) presented in that book. Bruno Bettelheim’s book, The Informed Heart, is likewise a “product” of the Holocaust experience. And yet another testament was bequeathed by little children who left behind drawings of butterflies on the walls of the hallways in which they knowingly awaited their turn in the ovens or gas chambers. Likewise remarkable is the example of Etty Hillesum, a Dutch Jew who was a beneficial presence to those with whom she faced impending extermination. Though she did not come across as a forgiving person in her diary's early entries, she ultimately demonstrated one of the greatest examples of forgiveness-while-*in-extremis* that is a matter of record. Her experience of the Holocaust was in such contrast to Wiesenthal's that the question is thereby posed: Is it possible to forgive even the "unforgivable"? In keeping with Dr. Luskin's definition of the purpose of forgiveness, Etty also wrote: "Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world." For more on Etty Hillesum see: A brief bio entitled "Thinking with the Heart": http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/08.14.97/cover/lit4-9733.html Quotes from Etty's letters and diaries: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/e/ettyhilles127232.html Reviews of the book, "An Interrupted Life," compiled from Etty's diaries (be sure to cut and paste this entire URL in your browser if it doesn't come out "hot"): http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0805050876/qid=1020955302/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-8507617-9648937 A lyceum dedicated to Etty's memory: http://www.ettyhillesumlyceum.nl/engels/index.html Stay in the grace! Noel McInnis noelmcinnis@forgivenessfirst.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ TO LOG ON TO YOUR COURSE SITE: Go to: http://www.AllLearn.org NEED HELP? Phone 1-866-524-1502 toll-free in the U.S. and Canada or send email to help@AllLearn.org If you're outside the US and Canada and wish to speak to someone, please email your phone number to help@AllLearn.org so that an AllLearn staff member may contact you. To the best of my knowledge, Shari, there is no fundamental physical, moral, attitudinal, behavioral, or other genre of principle that is upheld absolutely (i.e., regardless of circumstance) by all religions - even though it may have been thus upheld by the person in whose name the religion is founded. Therefore, does this make all principles wrong? Or does it make all principles relative to situations, including one's religious affiliation? To address the question differently: Do principles govern situations? Or do situations govern principles? If only one of these two questions may be answered "yes", by what meta-principle (i.e., a principle that governs the validity of other principles) is "yes" or "no" established? If the answer to both questions is "yes", is there a meta-principle that governs which "yes" is applicable to a given situation? And is that meta-principle any less ambiguous than the ambiguous ones that it governs? Another way to frame the consideration of ambiguity is with a different set of questions: Is ambiguity inherent in principles? Or is ambiguity inherent in our experience of applying them? Yet another way to frame such consideration: Is there any experience that is always true for everyone, other than the experience that every experience is relative to whomever is having it? And finally: Why and how (if at all) is it relevant and/or productive to be concerned with something about which there can be no universal agreement? These questions are more pertinent to SOM (Science of Mind, a.k.a. "Religious Science") than to any other religion that I am aware of, because only SOM equates its principles with God. Thus whatever a Religious Scientist believes about the nature of principles defines his/her belief about the nature of God. (As an ordained doctorate SOM minister I know intimately whereof I speak, and I delight in facilitating workshops that address SOM principles from the perspective of "The Science of Minding My Own Business".) A concluding metaphysical postscript: Are principles and truth ambiguous to God? Or are they irrelevant to God and of concern only to human beings? Or are they always and only relative to whose God we're talking about? And perhaps most germane to this course: Was Wiesenthal's encounter with the German officer ambiguous or unambiguous? If it was unambiguous, how did he (and/or how do we) know that it was so? If it was ambiguous, when is ambiguity of principle and/or experience forgivable, and when (if ever) is it not? Thank you for your self-disclosing assessments, Vivian, which always tend to be the most telling. During the many offerings of this course thus far, participation has always attenuated from one week to the next, which may have less to do with seasonal schedules, and more to do with attention spans and durationality of interest. I have, however, just recognized that in the third and fourth weeks of the class the questions posted on the discussion board are far more general and less personalized than those of weeks 1, 2, and 5, and this may have something to do with the attenuation of responses. As a test of this hypothesis, in the next offering of the course (September 22-October 26) I will post more personalized questions for weeks 3 and 4. As for the chat sessions, you have correctly discerned that they are designed for "whatever" - i.e., for addressing participants' questions and concerns rather than ones pre-structured by me. Also recognizing just now that I have never made this intention precisely clear, I will do so as well in subsequent course offerings. Your (and others') further reflections on my own above reflections are cordially invited. I believe it was Ben Franklin who originally said, "Fish and visitors stink after three days." I trust that by now all three of you (Stephen, Vivian, and yourself) as well as the others in this class have recognized that forgiveness is only secondarily about persons and situations, and is primarily about the release of one's own(ed) painful feelings. Only when I take full ownership of all feelings that I have been blamefully (i.e., unforgivingly) projecting on others, am I thereby empowered to release them. This process is the essence of what philosopher-poet William Blake called the cleansing of perception. During nearly four decades of ongoing self-examination, I have consistently confirmed in my own experience that all forgiveness begins as self-forgiveness. As I forgive myself for holding on to painful feelings and thereby release them, I gain clarity of mind and openness of heart with which to respond most effectively to the persons and situations at whom the released feelings are no longer aimed. Whenever I turn my attention from what triggers my painful feelings to focus instead on the feelings themselves and allow them to peak and attentuate as do all unimpeded energy flows, I empty myself of emotional ammunition. Whatever formerly triggered feelings of unforgiveness no longer does so, because my emotional gun is no longer loaded. (In terms of another metaphor, pushing my emotional "buttons" ceases to work once they are no longer wired to an emotional charge.) Although hurtful feelings are an integral and inevitable part of being alive, unforgivingly holding on to them is merely a habit, my breaking of which is always an option. In short: It is by breaking my habitual RETENTION of painful feelings that I become a generically forgiving person rather than an unforgiving person who makes case-by-case exceptions. The Dalai Lama's insights on self-compassion (which likewise is where all compassion for others begins) have been instrumental in my coming to this realization. Most helpful of all have been the writings of the spiritual mentor whose perspectives I have embodied more effectively than those of any other, Ernest Holmes. Holmes devised a healing methodology that he called "turning from the condition" - i.e., removing one's attention from external triggers (effects) and focusing it instead upon making over one's perceptions (cause). Holmes' method is both more simple and more rigorous than the H.E.A.L. method, because of the intensity of utter self-honesty that it requires. Only to the degree that one ceases one's self-deception does Holmes' method work. Fortunately, his method is its own means of ceasing self-deception. (The previous two sentences apply to the H.E.A.L. method as well.) Once again in short: Forgiving personhood is accomplished via the defusion (and thus diffusion as well) of deliberately retained painful feelings, and full self-ownership of whatever feelings remain. Shorter yet: forgiveness is the outcome of fully owning my own feelings, while ceasing to own any feeling of any other person. The rigorous aspect of forgiveness is its requirement of emotional self-ownership. Every feeling that I experience is always and only a product of my own psyche. Accordingly, to the extent that I hold anyone else responsible and accountable for any feeling that I have, be it the presence of pain or the absence of happiness, I am relentlessly and permanently beholden to and enslaved by that feeling. My search for "Enright AND forgiveness" turned up * a biographical account of Robert Enright's work at http://www.natcath.com/NCR_Online/archives/053097/053097a.htm; * reviews of his three books, Forgiveness Is a Choice (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1557987572/002-3602622-1626452), Helping Clients Forgive: An Empirical Guide for Resolving Anger and Restoring Hope (http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/1557986894/macinsearch08-20/702-9556339-7517616), and Exploring Forgiveness (http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0299157709/qid=1090854860/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_0_2/702-9556339-7517616) * a brief overview (with references) of Enright's Studies of Development of Thinking about Forgiveness, as follows: Enright and his collaborators at the University of Wisconsin-Madison conducted a series of studies throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s that showed that thinking about forgiveness developed much like reasoning about moral issues. Typically, Enright would sample children of three ages-say early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence. He developed a theory about the type of thinking regarding forgiveness one might expect from children of each age patterned on Lawrence Kohlberg's research on moral development. Children in early childhood usually thought very concretely and with great self-focus about justice. Those in middle childhood usually thought more abstractly. Adolescents usually reasoned using some principled thinking. Such studies have been done in the United States (Enright, Santos, & Al-Mabuk, 1989), Taiwan (Huang & Enright, 1992), and Seoul, Korea (Park & Enright, 1993). In the study by Huang and Enright (1992), the researchers identified people who reasoned in principled reasoning (stage 6) and those who reasoned using more concrete reasoning (stage 4). They found that stage-6 reasoners did not mask their conflict over whether to forgive with smiles whereas stage-4 reasoners did. References: Al-Mabuk, R. H., Enright, R. D., & Cardis, P. A. (1995). Forgiving education with parentally loved-deprived late adolescents. Journal of Moral Education, 24, 427-444. Coyle, C. T., & Enright, R. D. (1997). Forgiveness intervention with postabortion men. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 65, 1042-1046. Enright, R.D., Santos, M.J.D., & Al-Mabuk, R. (1989). The adolescent as forgiver. Journal of Adolescence, 12, 95-110. Freedman, S. R., & Enright, R. D. (1996). Forgiveness as an intervention goal with incest survivors. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 64, 983-992. Hebl, J., & Enright, R. D. (1993). Forgiveness as a psychotherapeutic goal with elderly females. Psychotherapy, 30, 658-667. Huang, S.T., & Enright, R.D. (1992). The moral development of forgiveness in Taiwan: Cross-cultural examination and relation to emotional expression. Unpublished manuscript, University of Wisconsin-Madison. McCullough, M.E., Exline, J. J., & Baumeister, R. F. (1997). An annotated bibliography of research on forgiveness and related concepts [On-line]. Available: http://www.templeton.org In: Grant opportunities. McCullough, M.E., & Worthington, E. L., Jr. (1995). Promoting forgiveness: The comparison of two brief psychoeducational interventions with a waiting-list control. Counseling and Values, 40, 55-68. McCullough, M.E., Worthington, E. L., Jr., & Rachal, K. C. (1997). Interpersonal forgiving in close relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 321-336. McCullough, M.E., Rachal, K.C., Sandage, S.J., Worthington, E.L., Jr., Brown, S.W., & Hight, T.A. (1998). Interpersonal forgiving in close relationships II: Theoretical elaboration and measurement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, in press. Park, Y.O., & Enright, R.D. (1993, April). The development of forgiveness in the context of friendship conflict in Korea The foregoing information is from http://www.has.vcu.edu/psy/psy101/forsyth/Read3.htm Enright's research is also cited at http://www.birthpsychology.com/primalhealth/primal7.html http://www.forgivenessweb.com/RdgRm/definitionpsychological_.htm http://www.templetonfoundation.net/archives/chronicle.asp http://foreverfamilies.byu.edu/xml/articles/forgiveness_in_families.aspx?&publication=full http://www.forgiving.org/Conference.htm Thank you, Shari, for signalling an occasion for me to share my own definition of forgiveness: "release from mental and emotional bondage to distress." More operationally defined: "for giving up attachment to mental and emotional turbulence." Though some occasions of distress are more or less permanent - such as a life-long disability or illness, the murder of one's child, and the consequences and memories of a holocaust experience - mental and emotional attachments to (and therefore stuckness in) such distresses are optional. I perceive this more generic definition of forgiveness to be an expansion of Dr. Luskin's "peace-of-mind" perspective, not contrary thereto. Furthermore, since unforgiveness is only one form of emotional and mental bondage, it is also only one of many such stucknesses from which the forgiving release of bondage may liberate me. Yet for the purposes of this course, we shall remain focussed on the resolution of unforgiveness. At the risk of being redundant (I may have shared this with the class before . . . ?), I have a prescription for the release of mental and emotional bondage to distress, which I received one day while feeling utterly mired in what John Bunyan (Pilgrim's Progress) called "the Slough of Despond." (The day: July 5, 1977.) Beginning in early childhood, whenever I felt "down" I would walk along a creek to watch its water flow. On the day cited above, I asked my creek-of-the-occasion for a healing remedy, and quite to my astonishment received a life-time prescription that has made further creekside consultations unnecessary. Ever since that day, whenever I feel "down" I get my former creekside benefits by mindfully contemplating the prescription entitled "Flow." [NOTE: Flowing is far more powerful than mere "going with the flow." The only thing that goes WITH the flow is a dead fish - which is approximately how I was feeling when I requested an antidote for my downer. Instead of "going with" or "being in" the flow, I was directed to flow from the integrity of my own being, a la Buddha's admonition that you cannot walk a liberating path until you are that path itself.] FLOW Be, as water is, without friction. Flow around the edges of those within your path. Surround within your ever-moving depths those who come to rest there— enfold them, while never for a moment holding on. Accept whatever distance others are moved within your flow. Be with them gently as far as they allow your strength to take them, and fill with your own being the remaining space when they are left behind. When dropping down life's rapids, froth and bubble into fragments if you must, knowing that the one of you now many will just as many times be one again. And when you've gone as far as you can go, quietly await your next beginning. For more on the origin, history, and availability of this be-your-own-flow prescription, see http://www.choosingforgiveness.org/flow(1).htm and the succession of web pages that follow. I have no problem with your imagery Shari, as you will see in the following excerpt from my forthcoming book on self-forgiveness: ********** "The rose outside my window bears no resemblance to any former rose." -Ralph Waldo Emerson In his book, The Universe Story (co-authored with Thomas Berry), astro-cosmologist Brian Swimme wrote, "the human being within the universe is a sounding board within a musical instrument." He preceded this statement with other metaphors of resonant intonation: "Walt Whitman is a space the Milky Way fashioned to feel its own grandeur"; and "the Milky Way expresses its inner depths in Emily Dickinson's poetry, for Emily Dickinson is a dimension of the galaxy's development." When I first read these observations, they brought to my mind an earlier statement by astronomer George Wald: “Matter has reached the point of beginning to know itself. [Man is] a star's way of knowing about stars.” During an interview of Brian, I asked if he could describe more precisely our resonant intonation of universal whole-being. This was apparently one of those questions for which the first thing that comes to mind may not provide the most useful response. Brian looked thoughtfully about for some time before he responded as follows: "Let me do that by considering the rose outside the window here. First of all, the light from that rose is radiating from the rose itself. This is contrary to what Newton said, that light bounces off the rose. From the perspective of quantum physics, light radiates from the rose. When light is absorbed by the rose, every photon that comes from the sun to the rose vanishes, is gone, is absorbed by the rose. So then what happens? Actually, the rose creates light - except that I don't really think of it in terms of light, because this suggests that what is being radiated is different from the rose. What the rose creates is photons, and they are not the same photons that it absorbed. That is point number one: the rose's photons are creations of the rose itself. "Point number two is that the connotation of the word "photon" is also faulty, suggesting that a particle of light is somehow different from a rose. The photons radiating from the rose are best understood as the self-expression of the rose. What is actually coming to you, what you actually see, is rose itself, as opposed to light bouncing off of rose. It's just rose. "Not only is our Newtonian idea of light faulty, so is our Newtonian idea of presence. Because just as we once thought that light was like little bullets that bounce off the surfaces that it touches, we also thought that a rose existed in one place, that the actual presence of the rose could be localized. In quantum physics that's not the way it works. It can't be, because the presence of the rose is wherever it affects anything. If you ask where the rose is located in terms of quantum mechanics, you must speak in terms of wherever it is affecting the universe. Therefore, if I am affected by the rose, it is here as well as there. I don't mean that it's partially here, or that its image is here, I mean that the rose itself is here. "Yet even if you are profoundly influenced by the rose, you are still picking up only a tiny dimension of what the rose is expressing about itself. The range of energies given off by the rose is vast, and the ability of our eyes and other senses to respond to that range is very limited. There is so much that is flooding us, and we are able to respond to such a tiny piece of it. "Now in that context, let's employ a metaphor similar to that of the sounding board, and say that human beings are like tuning forks. In the midst of a symphonic orchestra, a tuning fork begins to sound its particular note. And that's the way I think of a human being in the midst of the universe.” In the light of Brian's quantum-cosmological perspective, I am moved to extend the metaphor of resonant intonation beyond that of one's being merely one particular note. I am an instrumentation of the universe’s symphonic orchestration of whole-self well-being. I am an instrumentation, with and as which I resound my own melodic variation of the universe’s all-inclusive theme, in local counterpoint to the cosmos’ over-arching arrangement of its never-ending self-composition. Like Emerson’s non-referring roses, each of us newly resounds the melody of universal wholeness somewhat differently. The clarity with which I resound my own tuning depends upon the precision of my attunement to the orchestration of the whole. Accordingly, whether my life is in or out of tune with the wholeness that infuses all well-being is dependent on the degree of my awareness and allowance of the unique expression that in-here's my own well-being. My life’s tune is played by hear – by my deeply listening in accordance (a chord dance) with the wholeness of all being that resounds as my own being. As with the presence and scent of roses, so accordingly it is with the prescience and sentience of human beings: I am the lord-within of my own dance. The questions you have raised here, Vivian, along with those you raised in the chat room a while ago (the chat session will eventually be posted for all to see) are worthy of an entire course in and of themselves. What they all have in common is their relativity to the nature of selfhood. Before I proceed, however, since you are only a stone's throw from Stanford, where Dr. Luskin teaches, and since he is far more up to date with forgiveness research than I am, I suggest that you call him concerning the research literature, and share with the rest of us what you learn by doing so. You may benefit most from such a consultation, however, after you have followed through on the other suggestions that follow. On matters related to self, everything depends upon whether one is relating to the acquired aspect of self, i.e., the personna (which means "mask") a.k.a. "ego", or the generic aspect of self, i.e., what all selves have in common. The generic aspect of self is variously called the "innate self", the "higher self", and the "authentic self". Of these I find the term "authentic self" most useful. The acquired self is viewed quite differently in Eastern and Western cultures. Eastern cultures tend to perceive the self to be embedded in community as a part of the social whole. Western cultures instead tend to perceive the self as individuated from the social whole. Relatively speaking, therefore, the Eastern perception of community is that of a congregation of persons, while the Western perception of commuinity is that of an aggregation of persons. Since unforgiveness is an experience of separation, Easternized perception may be less prone to unforgiveness than is Westernized perception, an hypothesis upon which research could (and possibly already has been) based. The authentic self has been defined by new-paradigm philosopher Andrew Cohen, the founder of What Is Enlightenment? magazine, as follows: "The Authentic Self is that part of ourselves that is already whole. It has never been hurt, wounded, traumatized, or victimized. It is already whole and complete, yet it can and does develop. . . . The Authentic Self doesn't abide in the gross realm; it abides in . . . the subtle realm. It's aware of everything that is happening here [i.e., in the gross realm], cares passionately and can act in response to everything that's happening here, but is always free from everything that's happening here." Given that definition of selfhood, two other nearby places for you to inquire about forgiveness research are San Francisco's California Institute of Integral Studies (http://www.ciis.edu), the Palo Alto (whose name escapes me at the moment). You may also consult (online) Ken Wilber's Integral Institute (http://www.integralinstitute.org). For more on Andrew Cohen and What Is Enlightenment? magazine: http://www.wie.org The best generic answer to the question of when to stand up to bullies is also the shortest answer: "Always". Yet only if you know how. The best generic answer to the question of how to stand up to bullies is likewise short: "Neither kindly, nor in kind." This is because bullies rarely respond to kindness, and responding in kind most often encourages them to become even more bullish. I know of no single formula for standing up to bullies that always works, because both bullies and those who are bullied are too diverse to be comprehended by a single formula. One formula that tends to work well ONLY for those who do well at working it is, "Flinch not and do not yield." Among those who do best with this formula are those who practice Aikido, which is far more a training of the psyche than of the body because it mostly trains one's attention. In any event, YOUR answer to this question is once again more likely to be found in your heart than in your brain. There is one approach, Sarah, that can move you toward resolution of all the questions and concerns that you wonder about in this and subsequent posts: listen to yourself, rather than to what yourself is wondering about. TRULY and MINDFULLY listen to yourself, by shifting the focus of your present attention on your concerns so that it becomes focused instead on where your concerns are coming from. In other words, cease asking yourself, "What do I want to know?" and ask yourself instead, "What do I want to hear?" Because your heart hears so much that your brain cannot know on its own, it is in your hearing, not your knowing, that you will find your answers. I also sense that there are other concerns far deeper than the ones you have raised in this class that can also be moved toward resolution by this approach. Forgiveness is ultimately a matter of perspective and attitude, not a matter of busyness. Forgiveness is determined by HOW I am busy, not merely by my busyness itself. Thus far in my own life, for instance, all of my truly self-fulfilling gains have resulted from co-operation (which means "working together" not merely "getting along") rather than from competition. Co-operation is to forgiveness as competion is to unforgiveness. For instance, all effective teamwork - in sports, work, whatever - results from forgiving co-operation within the team rather than from the team's unforgiving competitive drive. As every effective coach knows, competitive teams whose members do not co-operate also do not win many games. Coaches understand that where effectiveness at winning is concerned, there is no such thing as a team and its members, there is only the team AS its members. Hence Ralph Waldo Emerson's saying, "No member of a crew is praised for the rugged individuality of his rowing." An ultimate example of co-operative busyness - a team AS its members - was offered by basketball player Bill Russell, in his book, Second Wind: "Every so often a Celtic game would heat up so that it became more than a physical or even mental game, and would be magical. That feeling is difficult to describe, and I certainly never talked about it when I was playing. When it happened, I could feel my play rise to a new level. It came rarely, and would last anywhere from five minutes to a whole quarter or more. Three or four plays were not enough to get it going. It would surround not only me and the other Celtics, but also the players on the other team and even the referees. "At that specific level, all sorts of odd things happened. The game would be in a heat of competition, and yet somehow I wouldn't feel competitive--which is a miracle in itself. I'd be putting out the maximum effort, straining, coughing up parts of my lungs as we ran, and yet I never felt the pain. The game would move so quickly that every fake, cut and pass would be surprising, and yet nothing could surprise me. It was almost as if we were playing is slow motion. During those spells, I could almost sense how the next play would develop and where the next show would be taken. Even before the other team brought the ball into bounds, I could feel it so keenly that I'd want to shout to my teammates, "It's coming there!" --except that I knew everything would change if I did. My premonitions would be consistently correct and I always felt then that I not only knew all the Celtics by heart, but also all the opposing players, and that they all knew me. There have been many times in my career when I felt moved or joyful, but these were the moments when I had chills pulsing up and down my spine. "Sometimes the feeling would last all the way to the end of the game, and when that happened I never cared who won. I can honestly say that those few times were the only ones when I did not care. I don't mean that I was a good sport about it--that I'd played my best and had nothing to be ashamed of. On the five or ten occasions when the game ended at that special level, I literally did not care who had won. If we lost, I'd still be as free and high as a sky hawk." In my own experience as well, it is when winning becomes more important to me than who is winning that the greatest of all wins by me become possible. In terms of a forgiving perspective, Chuck, your discernment is astute. Forgiveness is of persons (who), not of behavior (what). Forgiveness IS of persons, not a release (i.e., ignore-ance) of persons from responsibility and accountability for their actions. Forgiveness IS NOT of behavior, which actually would ignore the behaving person's responsibility and accountability for his/her actions. In the light of this distinction, unforgiving expressions of anger are ad hominem - hurtfully directed at persons BECAUSE of their behavior, rather than constructively directed toward and altering of their behavior. It is for this reason that unforgiveness evidences no more responsibility or accountability than does the behavior that it fails to address by instead intending destructive harm to persons who are unforgiven. Example: In Shari's successful (at last!) encounter with her sister Victoria, Shari focused on her sister's behavior rather than on her sister's personhood, which has always been Victoria's ad hominem approach to Shari. Shari thereby effectively disarmed the only behavior that Victoria knows with reference to Shari, hence the successful encounter. This is what makes Aikido (whether physical or psychological) benignly impersonal, whereas martial arts in general tend to be malignantly personal via their tactics of doing violent harm rather than of effecting harmless disarmament. For those not acquainted with Aikido, it is the only martial art where any harm to an attacker consists entirely of his/her own hostile energy boomeranging on him/herself. For instance, if Aikido were applied militarily, research would be focussed upon the development of electronic technology that redirects enemy missles in flight to return to their launching pads. Mark my words, such military strategies will one day prevail. The precedent for military Aikido goes at least as far back as ancient Chinese General Sun-Tzu's book, The Art of War, in which the general advised, "To win one hundred victories in battle is not the summit of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting him is the summit of skill." Would that such summitry prevailed after 9/11. And it still quite possibly could, because every general in the U.S. military has digested Sun-Tzu's book as part of his/her military training. Would also, therefore, that such digestion be required of military commanders in chief. Dear colleagues in forgiveness, In response to two inquiries concerning the appropriateness of addressing the U.S.political situation in this course, I have created a thread for that purpose in the "Social Forum" sector of the Discussion Board. So long as our discourse in that thread honors its declared intentionality by our sharing of insightful light rather than resentful heat, the purpose of this course will be fully served. With the exception of legal proceedings, nowhere other than in the political arena is unforgiving adversariality more alive and well, as a consequence of its being systematically amplified. Hence the politically radical nature of a statement made by the spiritual philosopher, Ernest Holmes: "It would be wonderful indeed if a group of persons should arrive on earth who were for something and against nothing. This would be the summum bonum [highest good] of human organization, wouldn't it?" Forgiveness is the only state of mind I know of in which it is possible for me to be for something and against nothing, thereby empowering myself to manage my own and others' dysfunctionality without exacerbating the very dysfunctionality that I am presuming to resolve. This is the case whether the dysfunctionality is personal or interpersonal - familial, communal, vocational, social, economic, political, international, global, etc. Accordingly, this thread is for those who are willing to sincerely and mindfully address the question, "How may I take a forgiving stand FOR something without harboring unforgiveness toward those who are for its contrary, including those who are openly against me?", and then to share for discussion with the rest of us what comes up for you. Among the benefits of our addressing this question may be: . our deepened understanding of the distinction between constructive (functional) and destructive (dysfunctional) anger; . our more mindful appreciation of perspectives such as those of Mohandus Gandhi; the mid-20th century American pacifist, A. J. Muste (author of the booklet, "Speak Truth to Power"); the South African author, Alan Paton (Cry, the Beloved Country); Martin Luther King, Jr.; the current Dalai Lama; contemporary authors Robert Perry (Path of Light) and Neale Donald Walsch (Tomorrow's God); and A Course in Miracles. Born to be a beneficial presence. I would reframe your first sentence, Noelle, by saying that each of us is born with the unfortunate likelihood of becoming that way, as well as with the fortunate ability to get over it. Assuming that I am the one who is responsible for my parents' and siblings' woes and welfare is a developmental phase in everyone's early childhood (called "narcissism") that I must eventually forgive myself for assuming, lest I remain stuck in that phase for life. The good news is that it is never too late to have a happy childhood, about which I will say more later in the course. For now, I will share my perspective on the way I sense each of us was born to be. Nearly five decades ago, psychologist Abraham Maslow made the following observation: "I find children, up to the time they are spoiled and flattened by the culture, [to be] nicer, better, more attractive human beings than their elders . . . The ‘taming and transforming’ that they undergo seems to hurt rather than help. It was not for nothing that a famous psychologist once defined adults as ‘deteriorated children.’ "Those human impulses which have seemed throughout our history to be deepest, to be most instinctive and unchangeable, to be most widely spread throughout mankind, i.e., the impulse to hate, to be jealous, to be hostile, to be greedy, to be egoistic and selfish are now being discovered more and more clearly to be acquired and are not instinctive. They are almost certainly neurotic and sick reactions to bad situations, more specifically to frustrations of our truly basic and instinct-like needs and impulses." I first read Maslow's perspective on adult-erated children in a document that also featured the following poem written by Christopher Morley circa 1922: The greatest poem ever known Is one all poets have outgrown: The poetry innate, untold, Of being only four years old. Still young enough to be a part Of Nature's great impulsive heart, Born comrade of bird, beast and tree And unselfconscious as the bee-- And yet with lovely reason skilled Each day new paradise to build, Elate explorer of each sense, Without dismay, without pretense! In your unstained, transparent eyes There is no conscience, no surprise: Life's queer conundrums you accept, Your strange divinity still kept. Being, that now absorbs you, all Harmonious, unit, integral, Will shred into perplexing bits -- Oh, contradiction of the wits! And Life, that sets all things in rhyme, May make you poet, too, in time-- But there were days, O tender elf, When you were poetry itself. There is yet another generic version of every person's story of their adult-eration as they were presumably growing "up", which consists of three short sentences totalling 13 words, written by Swami Satchidananda: "We started out fine. Then we got de-fined. Now we are getting refined." • “We started out fine.” Each of us is initially endowed as a beneficial presence whose nature is unconditionally forgiving. • “Then we got de-fined.” Each of us was invited to forsake our initial instinctive expression of our beneficial presence. • “Now we are getting re-fined.” Each of us is presently in recovery of our beneficial presence. The process of refinement consists of forgiving the adult-eration of our "just fine" beginning. I know, for instance, that I myself started out just fine. Like every newly arrived human being, I was born to be a beneficial presence. Indeed, I was born AS a beneficial presence. My nature at birth was instinctively forgiving, for in the beginning there was no unforgiveness in me. Like all newly arrived infants, I was a beneficial presence devoid of grievances and grudges held toward others, and I welcomed all who came into my presence. Furthermore, the evidence of my newly born beneficial presence was immediately at hand. When someone else’s finger was put in either of my palms – regardless of the person’s color, race, creed, gender, ethnic origin, size, appearance – I gently clasped it with my own fingers. I didn’t grab the presented finger, nor did I obsessively clutch, cling or otherwise persist in possessively holding on to it. I exercised no control over the offered finger, nor did I attempt to impede its departure. I gracefully enfolded its presence and just as gracefully relinquished it. This is the primal hug, a.k.a. the “Ur hug.” Such were the initial “rules of engagement” of my beneficial presence: the primal hug of embracement and release. Although these rules of engagement were not consciously known by me at birth, I instinctively embodied them. I was tenderly and unconditionally acknowledging, accepting, and allowing of every finger that came to rest in my hand, for however long my gently enfolding clasp was invited, and I just as unconditionally surrendered to the finger’s passage at the instant it was removed. No matter whose finger, which finger, or how the finger was given, I unconditionally welcomed it and then willingly respected its passage by gently surrendering to its departure. Such is the beneficial presence of all newly born human beings. Yet our beneficial presence, as initially evidenced in the primal hug, is exchanged by us for an artificial presence as we grow up, a presence whose acquisition of clinging and possessive rules of engagement constitutes our culture’s rite of passage into adulthood. Our only remedy for this plight is a mindful recovery of the initial rules of engagement – as evidenced in our primal hug of embracement and release – that each of us instinctively embodied and exercised subliminally as newborns. These initial rules of engagement now await our conscious reclamation. It is on behalf of such reclamation that this online course is offered. This is a classic example, Shari, of forgiveness for one's own sake - in this case not to have a painful void in your autobiographical consciousness. You performed a perceptual makeover - an exchange of unpleasant memories for pleasant ones via a cerebral bypass of formerly treasured pain. You have the power to do likewise with any other unpleasant memories. Your concern for confidentiality is quite reasonable, Stephen. This is one reason why students are not given access to any information about one another beyond what is shared on the discussion board. Confidentiality is urged, and we assume that it will be respected. Ultimately, however, this issue - like forgiveness itself - boils down to the extent of one's own self-confidence. I am now instructing this course for the sixth time, and I feel far more self-confident in doing so than I did in the beginning. I am accordingly far more transparent to my own forgiveness process and agenda than I was at the beginning. I am now approximately as trusting of the students in this course as I am of those whom I teach face to face. My counsel to you - in life generally as well as in this course - would be to live in the demilitarized zone between your comfort level and your perceived threat level, and to gradually yet continually extend the zone outward. I have also addressed the issue of confidentiality in a post entitled "What Makes This Course Work" in the "Social Forum". On the eviction of unwanted memories Dr. Luskin's H.E.A.L. method is an excellent way of delivering an eviction notice. Not having experienced what anyone else's anger is like, only the conseuqnces thereof, I can speak with direct authority only from my own experience of anger. I experience anger as self - destructive whenever I resist, repress, or otherwise deny and prevent its expression. It experience it as harmful of others whenever I act out its impulses. Only as I allow myself to experience anger without giving it any harmful form of expression, either to self or others, does its energy dissipate. Whereas some folks are challenged with the forgiveness of limitations imposed on them by biology and circumstance, Meena, you are faced with the challenge of forgiving yourself for having violated a self-imposed moral limit. The primacy of self-forgiveness as the foundation of all forgiveness is seldom more clear than when one has lapsed from one's own moral code. From my own experience of such challenges, I have come to respect morality's function: keeping me in harmony with the fundamental dynamic of making choices, which is that while I do have freedom of choice I do not have freedom of consequence. Although every choice I make has predictable as well as unpredictable outcomes, the overall quality of my choices' outcomes are quite predictable. In other words, morals are self-imposed limits based on the collective human experience with the range of consequences that accompany alternative choices. So long as I make choices based on fear of outcome, my choices are merely fearful ones, not moral ones. My most truly moral choices are based on my experience with past choices whose consequences have been detrimental to my well-being. Fortunately, there is a forgiving perspective on lapsed morality, which is grounded in the realization that decisions based on fearful avoidance rather than mindful avoidance ultimately have no authentic moral basis. Mindfully intelligent choices may be deemed moral insofar as they accurately discern the relative probabilities of the positive and negative outcomes that they may conform to a generally accepted moral code. Not having experienced what anyone else's anger is like, only the consequences thereof, I accordingly am able to speak with first-hand authority only from my own experience of anger. I experience anger as self - destructive whenever I resist, repress, or otherwise deny and prevent its expression. I experience it as harmful of others whenever I act out its impulses. Indulging anger in either way, by repressing it or acting it out, serves to perpetuate and strengthen it. Only as I allow myself to experience anger fully, without giving it any harmful form of expression to self or to others, does its energy dissipate. One way I choose to feel anger fully is to surf on it, by expending its energy on a constructive accomplishment. Your enthusiasm for life coaching will take you far in this course, Meena. Forgiveness coaching is a vital subset of my own life coaching activity. For example, see my description of the role of forgiveness in discerning one's vocation of destiny at http://www.awakenedvocation.com/vodhealing.htm . Your introduction moves me to make two statements, Elizabeth: 1. You have numerous, excellent reasons to burden yourself with grudges. 2. You have numerous, excellent reasons NOT to burden yourself with grudges. In both cases, the reasons are the same. One of my favorite perspectives on forgiveness is the following aboriginal anecdote: An aboriginal elder was visited by his grandson, who was seething with rage against someone who had wronged him. “I’m quite familiar with the way you’re feeling,” the grandfather said. “It is as if an ongoing battle is taking place inside of me, a fight between two wolves. One wolf is filled with hateful, unforgiving feelings – anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, false pride, judgment, suspicion, blamefulness, and such. The other wolf knows only the goodness of forgiving feelings – joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, trust, compassion, faith, and the like.” The grandson thought about this for a moment, then asked, "Which wolf is winning?" His grandfather replied, “Whichever one I feed."