posted April 09, 2013 09:42 AM            

There is no understanding without forgiveness,
yet, neither is there understanding without blame.
Absolute forgiveness gives a person too little credit,
while absolute blame gives too much.

Allow me to explain...

True understanding walks a middle way between these extremes,
since forgiveness without blame is like saying to someone,
"It's okay, you did your best; there was nothing better in you,"
while, blame without forgiveness says to them,
"You did your worst; there was nothing worse in you."

In the first instance, one is pardoned,
but only by being found incapable of greater good;
in a sense, one is sent back to the kiddie table;
reduced to a child with no free will and no hope of improvement.

Forgiveness says,
"Don't trouble yourself;
You are not man enough for this."

In the second instance, one is condemned
but only by being found incapable of greater evil;
a limit being placed on one's depravity,
but not on one's capacity for improvement.

Yet, we know that, in reality,
the truth is never so black or so white;
we might always have done better,
we might always have done worse.

A balanced approach would mingle forgiveness with blame, saying,
"You could have done better, but you could have done worse;
there is a greater capacity for good in you (but you did not yield to it),
just as there is a greater capacity for evil (but you did not yield to it)."

I do not want total forgiveness, --
for that is to dismiss my potential;
to treat me as a child, a madman, or a fool.

Nor do I want total blame, --
for that is to ignore the very real limitations against which I struggle,
and to treat me as a god, with no excuse for my humanity.

posted April 09, 2013 12:16 PM            

To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you. ~Lewis B. Smedes

posted April 10, 2013 05:03 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by AcousticGod:

To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you. ~Lewis B. Smedes

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posted April 12, 2013 12:21 PM            

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”

posted April 13, 2013 03:18 AM            

quote:

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Why blame god for causation? Karma tends to be cyclical. This illusion is not our home, and I endeavor never to stoop so low to attach meaning or assign blame for a dream I created when I was one. Such things just prolong duality imho.

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Your comment seems oddly misplaced in this thread, but you did get my attention.

Speaking for myself, I do not blame God for causality. In fact, the very notions of blame and causality are incongruous, are they not? But, then, I'm not a believer in causality. I have been in the past, but the present is no reflection. Nor am I a believer in God, in the sense in which that is commonly understood.

As for Karma, I don't really know what to make of it. The Buddha, for instance, refused to express a view as to whether Karma was individual or collective. While I'm not entirely sure how to interpret the word "Karma" in the fist place, I do have a sense that the individual is somehow intrinsically bound up with the collective, and vise versa.

As a mere mortal, I don't pretend not to "stoop so low" as to attach meaning and to assign blame for any number of created things, illusions or not. It's in my fallen nature to do so. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't be here.

As for duality, logic itself is a manifestation of duality. Contrasting this world, or this dream, with another, more legitimate one, is a clear example of dualistic thinking. It seems to me, we do our best to indicate something beyond the dual, while constrained by it. This thread, which seeks a synthesis between the thesis-antithesis of forgiveness and blame, is a fair example.

posted April 13, 2013 03:07 PM            

I am speaking of duality in reference to individuated egos as opposed to unity consciousness, not as in a dichotomous comparison. As for god, I am speaking in the Hindu sense of Ishvara, omnipresent, or John 10:34 Jesus answering, "Is it not written in your Law, I have said you are gods?"

Other things are about metaphysics of mind and the absolute. Mystical concepts such as the microcosm and the macrocosm, and then karma, which literally means action, how one mitigates that. There are ways of getting out of karma.