Please forgive By: Eckhart Tolle

ECKHART TOLLE writes the foreword in a recently published book that talks of why forgiving is integral to spiritual growth

In November 2008, Virginia-based spiritual teacher Master Charles Cannon and 24 associates travelling with him found themselves trapped in the Oberoi Hotel in Mumbai when it came under attack by terrorists. A total of 166 people were killed in the Mumbai attacks, including two in Master Charles’s group, a father and his 13-year-old daughter. Forgiving the Unforgivable, a book authored by Master Charles Cannon and Will Wilkinson, documents these events and the aftermath through the eyes of those who survived. Their focus, however, isn’t on external events, but on the inner: the survivors’ state of consciousness during and after the ordeal and your consciousness as you read.

The work is about forgiveness but, more essentially, it is about how to live in a certain state of consciousness out of which forgiveness arises naturally and effortlessly. It’s a book of spiritual teachings given against the background of a life-threatening emergency situation, just as the Bhagwad Gita is a book of spiritual teachings against the background of an impending battle and, perhaps, imminent death.

Awareness of the closeness of death has been recognised since ancient times as having great potential for bringing about a spiritual awakening. That’s why in some Buddhist traditions, monks go to morgues and cemeteries for their meditations.

It’s Possible To Forgive
Forgiveness is one of the most important spiritual concepts, but also one of the most misunderstood. Many people still consider it an act of self-deception, a sugarcoating of evil in an unconscious attempt to improve one’s “spiritual” self-image. They say forgiveness is too often associated with absolving the perpetrators of unspeakable acts of cruelty and inhumanity from responsibility for their crimes, attributing these acts instead to other factors such as social conditions (“we are all responsible”), the perpetrators’ childhood experiences, or their use of drugs, and so on. These are valid concerns and I would like to address them briefly here. 

The question of personal responsibility is, indeed, of crucial importance. If the perpetrator is responsible, how can we forgive? If he is ultimately not responsible, how can we not forgive? In the aftermath of their ordeal, one person in Master Charles’s group recalled Jesus’ words on the cross: “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.” Deep within, she recognises the truth of these words. But are these words objectively true? In certain extreme cases of clinical insanity, the saying “they know not what they do” applies. But what about the Mumbai terrorists, or those who carried out the bomb attack and mass shootings in Norway, or countless other atrocities that were orchestrated by individuals and, more frequently, by religious or political factions or governments? 

The perpetrators usually plan their actions in advance. They have a rigid belief system or ideology and can explain in seemingly rational terms why they consider their actions necessary. Don’t they know what they are doing? In what sense could we possibly say that they are not responsible, that “they know not what they do?”

It is not commonly realised — and certainly not taught at school — that there are two modalities of knowing. These are complementary, not mutually exclusive. 

Here’s an example:
Almost every day, I take a walk in a nearby forest. On a conceptual level, of course, I know that “I, Eckhart, am walking in the forest.” I know the names of at least some of the trees and plants and other things that can be known conceptually about the forest and myself walking in it. 

Yet, at the same time, there is also a deeper way of knowing the forest. It requires a certain degree of inner stillness, an alertness that brings about a temporary cessation of thinking. On that deeper level of knowing, I can sense the aliveness of the forest and the silent presence of the trees and plants as living energy-fields. I can also sense my own presence, not as Eckhart, which is a story attached to a concept, but as the perceiving and witnessing consciousness beyond name and form. We could call that knowing through awareness rather than through concepts. Conceptual knowing has to do with the world of form. The formless dimension is known through awareness. Awareness is the formless dimension — another word for it is spirit.

When I interact with other humans, the same applies. To some extent, I may relate to them through mental concepts, but my preference is always to relinquish concepts about who they are, to know them through awareness instead, and thus sense the essence for who they are beyond their history — beyond name and form. Reliance on concepts creates a sense of separation, but with awareness comes the realisation of oneness. That is where you feel the sacredness of all life.

It’s a sad fact that many humans still have no access to that deeper way of knowing. They are imprisoned, so to speak, within their limited conceptual reality, which is conditioned by the past. So Jesus’ words, “they know not what they do” refer to the lack of that deeper dimension of knowing, where we see ourselves in the other, are aware of the sacredness of all life, the oneness of all things. This is where empathy, compassion and love arise.

Trapped In Hatred
Of the millions still trapped in complete identification with conceptual thinking and who have not found access to that deeper and more inclusive sense of knowing that comes with awareness, only a relatively small percentage actually engage in acts of physical violence. All of them, however, tend to manifest conflict, unhappiness and ongoing negativity in their lives.

One of the world’s most famous sculptures, Michelangelo’s Pieta, in St Peter’s Basilica in Rome (where it is ironically protected by bullet-proof glass) shows the Virgin Mary holding the dead body of Jesus on her lap in a gesture of infinite tenderness. I see it as a powerful and moving universal image that, like all great art, transcends its original religious and historical context. It is an image of all-embracing compassion, a compassion that arises from that deeper knowing and includes those who are still unconscious and confined within their conceptual mental prisons — and who inflict suffering on themselves and others, particularly when their rigid mental concepts are fueled by deep-seated accumulations of emotional negativity — what I call the pain-body.

Move Beyond Attachment
But when mental judgement and emotional negativity are transcended in awareness, in that deeper knowing, we are able to forgive the unforgivable, as the men and women whose experiences you can read in this book were able to do so. Relinquish attachment to stories that define your identity and discover a deeper, timeless and formless identity beyond the content of your mind. Herein lies the essence of all spirituality.