The Fifth Law: The Law of Forgiveness
Congratulations on reaching the half-way mark on your spiritual journey using alchemy to transform yourself into the person you want to become. You’re now a 4/8 and you’re prepared to enter the Second Gateway just as soon as you complete the work assigned to the Fifth Law. You’re now entitled to access the following Laws: the Law of Acceptance, the Law of Happiness, the Law of Joy, the Law of Peace, and the Law of Forgiveness.
The Law of Forgiveness says that we can advance to the heights of our spiritual path only to the extent we can forgive ourselves and all others. To withhold forgiveness is to stay lost on our spiritual path. Only by forgiving ourselves and all others can we proceed along our spiritual path.
For most people, this is the most difficult step in the entire work of inner alchemy. This step is made more difficult than it has to be by common misunderstandings about forgiveness. To forgive a wrong does not mean that you are supposed to forget that it happened. It does not mean that you are supposed to treat the person as though the wrong never took place. It does not mean that you are supposed to let yourself be subjected to the same wrong, or some other wrong, all over again.
To forgive means simply to let go of the anger and resentment you’ve stored up inside yourself because of the wrong that was done to you. It means to let go of the burdens that anger and resentment loads on your body, mind, and spirit. It means to recognize that what happened to you belongs in the past, and you can lay down the burden and go on to make a different future for yourself.
You will likely find some things much easier to forgive than others, and at this time you may not be able to forgive everyone who hurt or harmed you, or everything that was done to you. That’s normal and natural. Again, progress rather than perfection is the goal of our work. Do the best you can at this time, and be prepared to forgive yourself for your limitations. As you proceed through the work of the Order of Spiritual Alchemy you’ll be returning to this work at intervals, and as you become aware of the psychological and spiritual benefits you gain from forgiveness, you’ll find that it’s easier to forgive things that seem unforgivable right now.
The Law of Forgiveness has eight separate and distinct steps to be practiced in order to qualify for advancement to the rank of 5/8. You are already familiar with those steps:
• Forgive your father for the things he did to hurt or harm you
• Forgive your mother for the things she did to hurt or harm you
• Forgive your children, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, and cousins for the things they did to hurt or harm you
• Forgive your aunts, uncles, grandparents, great uncles, great aunts, and all your ancestors for the things they did to hurt or harm you
• Forgive your spouse, lovers, friends, fellow students and fellow employees for the things they did to hurt or harm you
• Forgive your enemies and antagonists for the things they did to hurt or harm you
• Forgive all other persons whatsoever for the things they did to hurt or harm you
• Forgive yourself for your negative thoughts and ideas, ill feelings toward others and yourself, bad attitudes, wrong beliefs, poor intentions and everything you did to hurt others or yourself
1. Your first task is to forgive your father for everything he ever did that hurt or harmed you in any way. Forgive your father for his negative thoughts and words. Forgive your father for his poor judgment. Forgive him for being mistaken and misguided. Forgive him for everything you can remember that he did, said or didn’t do or say that hurt you.
Having already accepted your father in spite of all these faults, errors, mistakes, poor judgment errors, and hurts, it seems like forgiveness should be an easy next step. It isn’t. It hurts to forgive our father because he hurt us and we relive that pain every time we remember. It takes an effort to relive the pain, accept our father and forgive him. Our ancient brothers and sisters used a strategy to help themselves achieve forgiveness. This strategy is called the Breath of Forgiveness. This is a continuation of the Breath of Acceptance, and is explained at the end of this section.
Continue remembering the pain of your father’s faults and wrongs and then use the Breath of Forgiveness until you feel you really have forgiven your father for as much as you can forgive now. This completes your first task.
2. Your second task is to forgive your mother for everything she ever did that hurt or harmed you in any way. Forgive your mother for her negative thoughts and words. Forgive your mother for her poor judgment. Forgive her for being mistaken and misguided. Forgive her for everything you can remember that she did, said or didn’t do or say that hurt you.
Use the Breath of Forgiveness technique to forgive your mother for all the hurtful things she did to you or didn’t do for you. Follow the same strategy for your mother as you did for your father. Continue in this manner until you feel you’ve forgiven your mother for as much as you can forgive now. This completes your second task.
3. Your third task is to forgive your children, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, and cousins for everything they did to hurt or harm you, using the same technique you used to forgive your father and mother. Continue in this manner until you finish your third task.
4. Your fourth task is to forgive your aunts, uncles, grandparents, great uncles, great aunts, and all your ancestors for everything they did to hurt or harm you. Use the Breath of Forgiveness technique until you complete this task and then proceed to the fifth task.
5. Your fifth task is to forgive your spouse, lovers, friends, fellow students and fellow employees for everything they did to hurt or harm you. Use the Breath of Forgiveness technique until you complete this task and then proceed to the sixth task.
6. Your sixth task is to forgive your enemies and antagonists for everything they did to hurt or harm you. Use the Breath of Forgiveness Technique until you complete this task and then proceed to the seventh task.
7. Your seventh task is to forgive all other persons whatsoever for everything they did to hurt or harm you. Use the Breath of Forgiveness Technique until you complete this task and then proceed to the final task.
8. Your eighth task is to forgive yourself for your negative thoughts and ideas, ill feelings toward anybody and yourself, bad attitudes, wrong beliefs, poor intentions and everything you did to hurt others or yourself. Use the Breath of Forgiveness Technique until you complete this task.
As with the Law of Acceptance, the final task may prove to be the most difficult. You just need to keep on forgiving yourself for every wrong you can remember doing to anybody and for everything you failed to do to help another. You need to just keep on forgiving yourself until you feel you’ve finished this task for now. When you have done this, you have completed your eighth and final task for this rank.
Breath of Forgiveness
The Breath of Forgiveness is an extension of the Breath of Acceptance you learned in the materials for 1/8. If you don’t remember this technique, or if you haven’t used it up to this time, we suggest you review the Breath of Acceptance before continuing.
The simplest form of the Breath of Forgiveness is accomplished by calming yourself and settling into a comfortable position. Stay alert, stay relaxed, stay calm, breathe deeply, inhale through your nose and exhale through slightly-parted lips. As you exhale, send the thought on your breath “I forgive you (name of person) for (blank).” Fill in the blank with your own words. Continue breathing in this manner until you feel you’ve actually forgiven the person for what they did to hurt or harm you.
If you get stuck on a certain (blank) and tire of this task, don’t push yourself. Either go on to another (blank) or take a break. If you go on to another (blank), resolve to return to the problem (blank) later. If you take a break, try to limit it to no more than 48 hours. Experience teaches us that shorter and more frequent sessions, as often as three or four times a day, give better results than infrequent but longer sessions.
You can also do a more thorough form of the Breath of Forgiveness by doing the entire Breath of Acceptance as given earlier, focusing your attention on what you want to forgive. When you reach the Final Phase, do Stage One, accepting the person, place, or thing that you intend to forgive, or Stage Two, accepting yourself if you intend to forgive yourself. Then go on to Stage Three in the first case, or Stage Two in the second.
Stage Three of the Final Phase is to forgive this person, place or thing. Before we can forgive anyone, anything, any place or event, we must first learn to accept that person, place, thing or event and ourselves. If you haven’t accomplished these things to your own satisfaction, return to Stage One and/or Stage Two and continue working on those issues.
The work of Stage Three of the Final Phase of the Breath of Forgiveness is to imagine the person, place, thing or event that has harmed you during the pause between the inhalation and exhalation of your meditation. In your imagination imagine yourself forgiving that person, place, thing or event for the harm they caused you.
There’s one change in your breathing we’d like to suggest. With the Breath of Acceptance, you were asked to inhale and exhale through your nose. With the Breath of Forgiveness we suggest you inhale through your nose but exhale through your mouth. Let go all the energy you have invested in the object of your forgiveness as you exhale. Your exhalation can still be very quiet, you don’t need to do it loudly. But you can if it helps.
Continue this stage until you’re convinced you really do forgive them just as the Divine forgives both them and you. Send the message to the person, place or thing in your imagination that you forgive them for all the hurtful things they did to you. Continue sending this message on your exhalation through your mouth until you actually do forgive them to the best of your ability.
Forgiveness is a very powerful healing technique. As you forgive others you heal yourself, you open yourself to Divine forgiveness, and your Spirit sends out healing energy to others. People will sense and feel a change in you even if they don’t see any change in your appearance. We expect most people will also see a change in your face, posture, walk and demeanor as well as hear a difference in your voice.
Stage Four of the Final Phase is to forgive ourselves. Having forgiven others, use the same technique to forgive yourself. By forgiving yourself for all the perceived and actual wrongs you’ve committed, you heal yourself and increase your own healing energy many times. It’s only by forgiving ourselves and all others that we heal ourselves and become a healing channel for all others.
We encourage you to work through Stages One, Two, Three and Four for the rest of your life. As you do these practices you heal yourself on more and more levels of being and you become a healing center for others.
Stages Five through Seven will be revealed to you at the proper point in your continuing studies.