Recollection on Forgiveness
 

Introduction.

As I still my mind in this quiet place, I am conscious of something. I am aware of breathing, of
air flowing in through my nostrils and out. I notice the gentle rising and falling of my chest. If
I’m still enough, the beats of my heart come to my attention. I am conscious of being. Yes,
awareness is there but it seems to extend beyond my being. It’s as if my being is not isolated, as
if my sense of being is somehow part of a deeper sense of being, as it were, floating in
wholeness. My being is sensed as part of, as being more than part of, as intimately one with
wholeness. The feeling I have is of being a drop of water or a wave in an ocean. It is a peaceful
feeling. Here am, I, embraced and supported yet somehow so free and creative. What am I to call
this Wholeness? My sensation is one of Absolute Sharing. Is that what Love is? Am I in the
Presence of Love? Am I a presence of Love in my meditation and will I choose to be a presence
of Love in the world of my perceptions? Am I in beingness with All-That-Is?

My awareness of my beingness as intimately one with All-That-Is tells me that it is good. In my
meditation I know within me that this feeling of goodness has all to do with the
interconnectedness of me and the Whole, the All-That-Is.

Somewhat as a distraction, I’m reminded that in the world of my perception, humans perceive
humans as doing so much of what is called evil as well as what is called good. The feeling of
goodness coming from the convincéd state of wholeness is felt as a transformation of human
ideas of good, which, along with perceptions of evil, seem to be so much tied to boundéd ways
of perception. Within the contemplative feeling of oneness and wholeness, a wave within the
ocean contains but one feeling: it is good. Herein we begin to understand Elder Brother, Jesus’
teaching on forgiveness.



Recollection on Forgiveness
Part 1

Within my experience of being a wave in the ocean, I have a perception of sharing in goodness
pervading my very being. The Source of my goodness effects only what is of Its essence and, as a
wave to the ocean shares in the whole ocean, I share in that essence. My conviction is that, as my
Source is good so I am good and that evil exists only in my body-mind lacking awareness of my
oneness with the Source of my being. I, like the wave in the ocean, do not feel any boundaries
separating me from the wholeness of the Source. My body-mind seems to have conceived an
illusion of boundaries isolating me from the Source losing universal perspective. The goodness
and embrace of the Source (the Ocean of which I, as a wave, know only constant caress) seem
irrationally lost to me. The all pervading presence around and within me seems alien as I persist in
the imagined boundaries. Thinking my being isolated in its own beingness and unaware of the
wonder of constant embrace, I easily generate fear and evil which cannot exist in the wholeness
of my being one with the Source.

My meditative thoughts reveal my being as eternally present in an all pervading Presence
sourcing my being and intimately sharing unreservedly Its very Being and Creativity. This is
Creation-in-Love, the Wonder-of-Constant-Embrace.

So engrossed am I in setting boundaries I lock my body-mind against feeling the Presence of
Love constantly embracing me and offering as my own and without limits all that the Presence-
of-Love is. Unaware of the wonder of my being I even make for myself a world of fear and
imprison myself against a Love that knows no bounds. In spite of all my delusion nothing has
changed in Creation. My true being wants for nothing and my awakening is all that is waiting.

Here I am now beginning to gain insight into what forgiveness is.


Recollection on Forgiveness
Part 2

I have in my mind an image of a peasant of medieval times. Having done, it seems, some wrong,
he has been dragged before the Feudal Lord. Here he is prostrate in the dust in the hope his
abject pleading will wring some mercy. I am reminded that a similar image was taught in the past
and persists in the minds of some regarding our relationship with God. My feelings are troubled
at the thought that remnants of such teaching and ritualistic representations persist today. My
awakening in meditation tells me this to be a perception completely contrary to me-as-offspring
of the Loving-God, the pure-to-image-effect of the Source of all being. I am one with the
Presence-of-Love and as a presence-of-Love in this world, the perceptions of me and what I see
around me that do not fit into that relationship need healing, not judgment and condemnation.
The Father did not see anything but his son in the returning prodigal. The father’s love certainly
not sees the perceptions his returning son or the brother had.

I wonder what it is that makes me feel in need of forgiveness. Is it that I have inherited a
mistaken idea I am somehow separated from God? What am I looking at? Have I forsaken the
truth that God created me a perfect reflection of God?
In fact, it seems I’ve a phobia about the completeness and wholeness of my relationship with my
Creator. Is this the origin of the feelings of guilt and of the self judgment of being one deserving
of God’s anger?

My deep down awakened consciousness poses for me questions I need to answer. Could God
create contrary to divine nature? Could divine creativity possibly bring about a being of lesser
reality unworthy of divine nature? Is it possible for God to initiate a being capable of
permanently thwarting the divine Mind and Will? I feel God’s Mind and Will could never be
changed. Nothing is wrong about God. Nothing is wrong about whatever has come from the
divine essence. What God has created is perfect and always remains perfect.

In all that is written above lies the seeds of knowing forgiveness, Part 3 brings them together.


Recollection on Forgiveness
Part 3

I ponder the questions of part 2 and am left wondering how I could have possibly thought up
such wrong ideas about myself. In contact with my inner self in meditation, I realize I’ve failed
to see the real me. I’ve made the mistake of perceiving boundaries where none were created. I
have persisted so long with limiting thoughts that I have forgotten the reality my Creator made.

In the depths of inner knowingness found in meditation, I find something drawing me to awaken
fully to that reality. Holding that reality I’m filled with a sense of freedom, like having a load
lifted from my mind, shedding ill conceived boundaries and limitations and remembering my
“Father’s House”. As in the prodigal son story my welcome is assured. I do have memories of
horrors experienced in the dream-like world of perception. These horrors together with the
wrongs and sins I have lived through, I leave behind as a child awakens from troubled sleep. The
nightmares were so convincing but now I see the reality. Now I, the child, am in the arms of the
loving parent. Now I am convinced, despite all my efforts to believe otherwise, I have not
changed. Nothing has changed. I have simply awakened. Peace and Love are what I have always
had but not aware of in the illusory world of boundaries and limitations where I projected evil
and fear. I now realize I’m the beloved, eternally embraced by God as I always was in the
complete Oneness we all share in. Now all I have to do is awaken, pay attention to what is
revealed in the depth of inner knowingness, and forgive my wrong perceptions of me and others.
Memory will return. The bliss and creativity innate to my being in the One will be realized now
even as they were always.

God has nothing to forgive me. I remain as I always was, the beloved child of God, never having
lost the perfection given in Creation. The sinful, even, evil self I have believed me to be is the
fruit of an ill conceived perception. I gladly forgive that perception and the way I have seen
others in this world including the judgments I have placed on them. For me now forgiveness is
the same as salvation. Both imply something impossible, something to be saved from or forgiven
for. Both imply something amiss that needs correction or contrary to the Will of God. But
nothing has changed. The Will of God has not and cannot be thwarted. The only thing that exists
between God, all brothers and sisters, the world and me is what I have thought of as sin. Now I
forgive that thought as of the past, so it no longer separates me from God and from each other.
Now any idea of gap between us is gone. Love, never lost is revealed.

© Francis Brown 2007

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Tragedy 9/11

The end came quick, but those who saw
Had terror and fear. What can I do?
Just be...and know, it’s not the law
That saves mankind, but love right through.
 
To see those there to windows cling
While fire does rage and pieces fall,
Compassion stirs and my heart does sing
To hear within, a mighty call.
 
Where can I serve as many suffer?
What can I do to relieve the pain?
That tears apart loved child and mother?
But how to join such lives again?
 
Within my being, I do know
My Source made me and those who died.
Just one we are, as God did bestow
On what seemed good and on what evil belies.
 
Such loss of life as real it may seem,
Undoes my sense of goodness now,
But when I wake from this mad mad dream,
We all are one, as Creator knows how.
©Francis Brown 6th October 2001
  
Yours in the Love that never ends.
 

One in me

One in me, Friend, is who you are. What is Love but the connectedness of Divine Life, the Life shared between God and me, between God and you and between you and me? God, the Uncreated, dares to extend what is omnipotent, omniscient, infinite and All to a being, though created, sharing full quality and quantity of Life. What Love is this, so far beyond any idea of love we, that being though unaware preferring dreams to reality, have beautifully made. 
 
 
Really we need do nothing but awaken to the reality of Oneness. Let Divine Life flow. We have it but pretend we don't. How arrogant such behaviour sounds. God gives us a present and we carry it around thinking, even saying, we have it not. Are we afraid to open God's present lest it make us feel wrong about what we have been holding about our self. Are we to hide such a present pretending we don't have it?
 
What delight it is to be the Life of God! We don't have to do anything. Just enjoy. Accept the everlasting Embrace and let that embrace expand. The creativity given us is unlimited.
 
Nothing is real except you and me and I in you for we have come to you and are within you. God is All-There-Is and we are It, and there is no coming and going, a bit here and a bit there. There is no boundary. Love is. That's all.
 
 What of our human condition? Of our making, is it to be lived in misery or are we to allow our Divine Life it transform it. All we have comes from God. Are we to leave that all idle? The Life we are is vital and cannot be contained. God's Will for us is perfect happiness. Why are we blocking that fulfilment? The wonderful freedom God shares with us is not to be used to hold a will to stay asleep. God prompts us but will not abruptly awaken the Divine Child. That is what we shy and hedge around but we will choose to awaken. What joy that will be, realizing at last that we were never anything but the Only Child of God.
 
 

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The Life We Are


The life we live is because Life is. Being is life and God is Source-of-Life so dynamic that it is shared and, so we, as one, are the-being-sharing-in-that-Life. We are like God in every way except God-Life is the Source and we the effect.



Jesus spoke of God as Father (meaning Source). He spoke of himself as Son (meaning effect) and what he said of himself he included us, one Son. As Son (Child) he knows we are whole (and holy) with all perfection, freedom and fullness of life. Jesus was (is) aware of this and this awareness made him as the manifestation (incarnation) of God. He became known in the Church as the Son of God. Yes, Jesus was aware and awake to the wonderful relationship we have with God and he also saw that his brothers and sisters of his day did not have that awareness and needed to be awakened. The Hebrew religion of his day reinforced that state and many remained blind to the reality of who they were. They felt the misery, the sickness, the poverty, the hopelessness and death that easily reflected the beliefs imposed. The Christian religion that grew from what was passed on regarding Jesus’ life and teaching, easily took on the denigrating images so easily seen in Imperial Rome’s and Jerusalem ‘s attitudes toward their subjects, the common people. Jesus wanted us to be awake to the fullness of Life given unreservedly by God. He said that he came that we will have life and have it to the fullest. Why settle for less when we have everything even the Life of God? Why attempt to fly with the wings of a sparrow when we have all the power of the eagle? Given all; why deny it or water it down? Why do we go even further? – To declare what is whole, perfect and holy to be something shattered, frail and sinful? Why? Why? Jesus wanted Life, even the Life of God, given totally in Love. Why refuse Jesus wish? Why go against the Will of God?



Jesus spoke of God as Abba because he knew God is Love and that our sharing of God-Life is a sharing in God-Love. That is our destiny: To Love as God loved, as Jesus was (is) manifestation of. It is our destiny, a destiny we can delay but not change.



Jesus said he would send his Holy Spirit to deal directly with our inner selves regarding the Life of God that It knew and also with the perception of life that we are holding on to. Holy Spirit would guide us through all our aberrations, whilst comforting us, on the way of awakening until we are fully aware of the Truth about ourselves in relation to God.



Father, Son, Holy Spirit. All is One.



Ourselves and the world we made to fit the lesser images we have of ourselves is but one with the Life of God. Our perception of it is not as God sees God’s Creation. What we see it to be in our unhealed state is not what God sees. God sees God’s Only Son and eternally embraces it. Whatever we see it as contrary to the way God sees it does not change anything. God sees us as God’s Only Son sharing Life with God and one another as one and we will come to see it all God’s way. We have choice. We have choice to awaken now – or, with dream filled heads, to put it off –but we will awaken. Jesus does not want us to put it off any longer.



This wonderful world full of humans using (in varying ways) the creativity that is part of divine Life, struggling on over the self made obstacles, is life. Jesus wants us to live fully and with significance according to the Life we are given. As One we live; as One we work at awakening and as One we help one another towards awakening.



Are we a “Kingdom”, a concept arising from Roman and feudal systems of government? Such concepts limit the mighty Child-of-God. We are a One, a one body if you like, or one Body of Christ, a Christ which we all are by Creation. Life, the life we really are, is to be lived as it is, fully and without any man-made diminution.



Francis Brown, April 2008


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