Rainer Maria Rilke wrote sublimely beautiful poetry. In delicate, air-drawn lines, he expressed ideas with rare emotions. In The Bowl of Roses, his descriptions capture uncanny truth and beauty, with deft simplicity. With the intuition of an artist, he knew that his delicate conceptions had to be introduced with contrast to have their best effect. Thus the opening stanza is as follows.
A sight probably everyone has seen. Two young lads going at each other with a furor which would be the envy of a professional prize fighter. It is not easy to untangle them. Then comes the hard part, getting them to apologize and forgive. They meant it when they were fighting; they still mean it after they are parted. Eventually, they can be cajoled, or commanded, to make up. When they do, the apologies do not have the sincerity their anger had. Apologies are like that. Either they come too easily, meaning that they are insincere, or too hard, meaning they aren’t true. It isn’t limited to children, it is similar with adults. Only rarely does one encounter a sincere apology, …, followed by healing. Even then, the cause is not forgotten.
Attempting to rationalize forgiveness, meets similar obstacles. Some believe forgiveness is impossible. What has been done, has been done, and cannot be undone. Deeds change everything; time can be reversed in physics equations, but not in life. A cause cannot be removed from its consequences. Reparations and amends, though they mollify the recipients, do not nullify the original causes. Voiding an entire experience, cause and consequence, if it were possible, would be voiding experience, and experience is one of the purposes of our existence. Treating individual causes and consequences in isolation, is treating them in abstract. Abstract ideas, like mathematical theorems, are capable of incontrovertible proof, but only in theory. Application of abstract principles in concrete manifestation, is more complicated, even messy, but it does seem to evolve, if not resolve. In life, one errs, suffers the consequences, repents, requites, absorbs the essence of the experience as soul, and moves on. It is not as tidy and pure as the proof of a theorem, but there is true progress toward perfection.
The difficulty with forgiveness, is more than a matter of abstract, philosophical, ethics. It is important to Christians and, especially, Christian Mystical aspirants. It was vitally important to the Gospel Christ-Jesus. When Christ-Jesus forgave sins as part of a healing, the Pharisees who didn’t believe in him (some did until then) turned against him with vehemence, and soon thereafter brought on the crucifixion. The Pharisees were a legalistic, socio-religious sect that had beliefs not found in the Torah, which was the sole basis of belief of the Sadducees and other more conservative sects. Some of the beliefs of the Pharisees teachings, came from the Prophets and “traditions of the fathers.” They included resurrection of the dead, and a belief that only God could forgive sins. To them, when Christ-Jesus forgave sins, he was proclaiming divinity—blasphemy, a sin punishable by death.
The belief of the Pharisees, concerning the forgiveness of sins, is a religious parallel to the philosophical statement about the impossibility of forgiveness given above, except that it includes the divine prerogative. Christ did not deny this belief, did not defend himself, and did not proclaim divinity directly. His acts stood for themselves. From without, there is no proof of sins actually being forgiven, though the testimony of the healed seems to substantiate it. Only the divine inner vision, the eye of God, can know for certain.
Christ did more than forgive, he commanded those who would follow him, to do so also. Forgiveness is mentioned in all of the Gospels; there are forty-eight instances. In St. Matthews Gospel, St. Peter is admonished to forgive someone seventy times seven times. In both versions of the Lord’s Prayer, the supplicant asks for forgiveness of sins, while forgiving the sins of others. Christ would never ask his followers to do something impossible to do. Hence, it is necessary to know clearly what forgiveness is, and how it is accomplished.
There are different varieties of forgiveness. Forgiving a financial debt, is different from redressing an emotional slight. Remission of sin, is what is usually meant by forgiveness among Christians. This common definition of remission raises more questions and conundrums. For one, it seems to necessitate a definition of sin, another philosophically problematic act. The simplest definition of sin is a transgression of divine law. This definition immediately spawns still more questions, such as “are there divine laws?” and “if so, what are they?” There are plenty of religious laws, the Old Testament is chocked full of them. However, they are not laws, in the way laws of nature are laws. Religious laws are respective to specific religions, and religions are respective to the needs of specific populations. Such a definition of sin and forgiveness, is subjective, and not likely what our Lord meant, though there is some indication of this in the Gospels. The fact is, that he and his disciples, were rebuked for not keeping religious laws, and in this, he defended his stance eloquently.
In mysticism, which is not religion but spirituality, there is one law that applies to human behavior. Classically, it is called the principle, or law, of action. More commonly, it is known as the principle of cause and consequence. Every action has its equal and opposite reaction, or every cause has its consequence. In this principle there is the security of divine justice. In this principle there is perfect creative feedback. In this principle there is not a vindication of the remission of sins—some non-Christian mystics still adhere to the principle of action without forgiveness.
The simplest description of the remission, or forgiveness, of sin, is to make things as though the sin never occurred. To do this would be to abrogate the principle of action. To do this would be to gut an action of its experience. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the Prophets, I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” Perhaps, in the forgiveness of a sin, the guiltiness of about the deed is removed but not the deed.
If the principle of action is inviolable, and religious law is subject to the people, and the times; sin and its forgiveness, if they exist, must be found elsewhere. Perhaps in something which includes the best points of both.
The word religion literally means to reconnect.The reconnection is to divinity. After the fall, humanity gradually lost the inner, spiritual vision, with which humanity could see its divine heritage. After the fall, humanity began focussing increasingly on the outer, material world, almost to the exclusion of inner spiritual purpose. Human, incarnate existence was becoming spiritually barren. Spirit is not to be denied. Bereft of direct, divine, experience, the spirit still hungered for divinity. The hunger was satisfied by high, spiritual beings providing religions to bring their charges to experience the feel divinity, according their needs and natures. When humans, by taking creative power into their own hands, exercised free will in disobedience, it was, in effect, a declaration of divinity. It was an action that proclaimed divinity, in the same way the forgiveness in healings given by Christ, did. The divine hierarchies could no longer directly control humans at will, as they had previously. They had to respect the divinity in humans. Religion had to uplift, guide, and control, indirectly. With the loss of inner, spiritual vision, came the loss of the sense of purpose embodied in the grand design of the evolutionary creation. Religion then had to be subjective to serve the deviate needs of humans, until they could see again, and voluntarily dedicate themselves to the divine plan. Religious laws are subjective, but their intent is to help humans to return to objective, divine, harmony. At first, religions were strict, because of the extremity of recalcitrant deviance; sometimes violation of religious law was lethal. Atonement consisted of sacrificing dear, material, things; sometimes even life. Forgiveness of sins was impossible. Gradually, over millennia, religious laws have come closer to approximating the principles of the evolutionary creation, and we have become more amenable to attunement to spiritual purpose. Forgiveness of religious sins has become possible, and it is a loving reminder of our neglect of spiritual responsibility. In forgiveness of religious sins, one is, by love, drawn to love, and away from constraints externally imposed.
These things are about subjective religious transgressions and atonements; what about objective sin and forgiveness, sin against divine law? At the time of the fall, humanity was undergoing gradually decreasing control by divine hierarchies, coetaneous with awakening consciousness. There was no religion, which only became necessary after the fall. Hence, sin had to have been objective to the laws of the creation, cosmic laws. This, again, raises the question “what is the nature of objective sin and its forgiveness?
Religious law can be seen as a limited analogical subset of principles of the evolutionary creation—divine, objective law. Religious law is artificial, because human disobedience took humans out of the divine, or authentic, plan, and its laws. Cosmic law, the law of the cosmos or evolutionary creation, is based on universal principles. Chief among these principles, relative to this topic, is the law of action, wherein every action will have its equal and opposite reaction. Though these principles are abstract, transcendental, and eternal, the interactive expression of them is dynamic, and down to earth. There is no standing still in evolution. Either one is progressing, or falling behind the flow. Cosmic, creative principles are not dead, they are alive and lively. Even the edifice of geometry is not lifeless; its ideas are filled with the radiant life of truth, which is expressed in its manifest expressions. The principles of the creation are not colorless and empty, they are pregnant with character. The One, the Universal Spirit, is being, which expresses itself, in its truth, in the living principles of the creation. The principle of cause and consequence is a living, divine being, living within every discrete being. It is not an external coercive force, it is within every being of action. It is inescapable in any action, and without action, there is no life.
There is a difference between being and a being. A being, a spiritual entity, is different from a state of spiritual being whose character is boundless. In the Rosicrucian philosophy, Life Spirit and Divine Spirit are states of spiritual being that transcend the Human Spirit, which is a manifest being, in the abstract subdivision of the world of thought, the world of ideas, laws and principles, including the principle of action. It requires an individual to act directly. The third member of any trinity acts. The third member of the Supreme Being is motion or action. The trinity, called the Godhead, has the attributes of will, love-wisdom, and activity. Spirit lives, individuals and individualities act, and when they act, they act under the principle of action. In this is the answer to the question of the nature of forgiveness, in large and small.
As spiritual beings we effect causes. We could do so before the fall; before we even had a lower nature, with its personal ego. Until the fall, we were innocent and ignorant. We had not eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge. At that time, we sloughed physical bodies with as little concern as a snake sloughing its skin. It was also a time of transition. We were becoming less aware of spiritual things, and more aware of material things. In our innocence, our attention was spuriously turned to the loss of our bodies, with the intent of awakening insecurity. We fell for it, and we also awakened the potential of selfishness, under which we initiated actions in ignorance. We initiated actions, of whose consequences we were unaware. Our timing and intentions fell out of harmony with the pace and purpose of the evolutionary creation. Our causes, made in ignorance, produced consequences, received in ignorance. The arc into materiality, became an arc into cumulative suffering in ignorance. We generated more discordant consequences than we could transmute. This has been our lot in the larger arena of evolution, and the smaller sphere of our everyday lives. In our selfish ignorance, and our relative, creative impotence, we have generated an appreciable backlog of unredeemed destiny, which some call the burden of sin. Moreover, we have made it personal, whereas the creation is impersonal—“God is no respecter of persons.”
We are now on the upswing on the arc out of materiality, and into greater spirituality. Our experiences have awakened us; we have learned from them, and we have gained soul power. Nonetheless, we still act in relative ignorance and selfishness, and we still take things personally.The weight of the burden of sin, with its insistent and painful urge to requital, which is a perverted, personal misinterpretation of cause and consequence, as “justice,” is becoming more unbearable. In our spiritual awareness, we long for freedom from suffering, for ourselves and others. We have awakened a hunger for righteousness, and we crave forgiveness. What is to be done?
The law of action, on its own, has not been adequate to the task of redemption, since we became outlaws. With our perverse, creative interjections, our burden of sin has grown under the law. Sometimes it feels like we add to it daily, though that might be merely greater recognition and not factual reality. We are more aware of ourselves as initiators of causes, and we are becoming more clearly aware of our character, in the flavor of our consequences. However, cause and consequence are still not enough, nor is the Self, divine though it is, the answer to the dilemma. It feels as though causes and consequences could rattle on as long as time exists, like some giant machine with a multitude of operators. In a larger view of things, the law of action by itself, does not describe the evolutionary creation. In the greater reality, evolutionary and creative conditions are always changing, and as we have seen, even the divine plan has changed to accommodate our transgression of it. The reason for the changes, large and small, is novelty. Newness has been, and always is, injected into the ongoing stream of causes and consequences. There is improvement despite our often errant ways. “Things getting better” is a valid description of spiritual evolution. In novelty, the solution to the problems of forgiveness is to be found.
Injecting new things into the ongoing stream of causes and consequences we call evolution, will not in itself, produce redemption in either macrocosm and microcosm. We invent new war machines and new machinations to disgrace perceived enemies. Neither brings forgiveness and the resolution that issues from it. A deeper understanding of novelty is necessary.
The Bible, though in some respects archaic, often offers valuable hints for spiritual understanding. It is a good place to begin to understand this. In the book of Revelation, He who sits on the throne and works salvation through the lamb says “Behold, I make all things new.” Through Christ, the lamb, we are to reach salvation, redemption and the forgiveness of sins.
Christ, the Highest Initiate of the sun period, is the living representative of Life Spirit, as the second person of the Godhead. As the personification of Life Spirit, Christ dispenses all of the powers of Life Spirit into the creation. Life Spirit transcends Human Spirit. Life Spirit is a state of spiritual being, a Human Spirit is a being. Human Spirit, though universal, has internal qualifications, like every other being and principle in the abstract subdivision of the world of thought. To be in Human Spirit, is to act, as do all third members of trinities. For example, the human Self, as a spiritual being, is the Thinker. From this we can see Christ-given novelty from Life Spirit, as the purest blessing of novelty. It is forgiveness. Though true, this is terribly abstract. What one wants is the “living water.”
Life Spirit transcends Human Spirit. Therefore, it transcends not only the personal ego, it transcends even the spiritual Self. Nonetheless, Life Spirit is not aloof or distant. It is infinitely close and intimate. Life Spirit is the essence of selfness from which the Self is conceived. It expresses its love-wisdom character, without any hitch or bias. In its altruism, it is free; living in its freedom, it respects freedom as well as the needs of others. One asks for forgiveness, or to forgive others. In doing this, one transcends Self, without losing Self, for the sake of the other, for the sake of the all, for the sake of Christ.
True forgiveness is a state of grace. In a state of grace one is more than one’s Self. One is both humbled and uplifted to, and by, Life Spirit. One experiences the fullness of love and all of the other qualities of Life Spirit, including boundless newness. The experience is not idle. In grace, newness is expressed in the highest form of creativity, creativity in life. In grace, causes are not eradicated, they are creatively transformed. What had been as ugly as sin, becomes a thing of beauty; in the way a seed, a “necessary nothing,” becomes a rose, with the beauty we call graceful.
Personal attachment is a bane to spiritual development. If we approach our responsibilities to others with attachment, we produce unnecessary tension. We occlude or cripple the very things we would do. If we do fulfill our duties in this way, it is not the glorious achievement it could be. When we give ourselves and our works over to Christ, so to speak, we depersonalize them, and we “demystify” them. There is as little of living friction as possible. “My yoke is easy.” There is RELIEF, blessed relief. Beyond the removal of impediment, there is something gloriously positive in the experience of the grace of Christ. JOY, spiritual joy. Life, and everything in it, is a joyous experience. Even if we only experience the anticipation of grace, there is the promise of joy—“that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy might be full.” This is true whether we experience a moment of grace, or a life of grace.
Christ, speaking from Life Spirit, said “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Life Spirit is beyond the world of thought. The truth that is Life Spirit, is beyond even the abstract principles of logic. In Life Spirit, paradoxical opposites meet, and unite in Truth. In the way that we associate the Father, in what is to us, the spiritual, masculine, Divine Spirit, we can associate, what is to us the spiritual, feminine, Life Spirit, with a divine mother. We as Selves, or spiritual individualities, are children of one all-loving Mother. The love of Life Spirit as divine mother, looks after our every need in a manner beyond our understanding, if we allow it. Life Spirit love, loves where love is most needed. In the love of Christ and Life Spirit, we learn more, in the way of wisdom, than we do from the principle of action. As wonderful as this is, there is more—with Christ there is always more.
The paradoxical way of Life Spirit is sometimes better described in poetry than in philosophy. John 1:16 is an excellent example, “And of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace.” Good poetry is capable of more than one interpretation. One interpretation of “and grace for grace” gives poetic insight into the paradoxical nature of grace. Grace is more than a practical giving of love according to need. In grace, Life Spirit love loves because it loves. It is the purest of pure. Its very nature is to love; it can’t do other than love. Life Spirit loves in complete freedom. There is no weight to it, as there is with a cause. At the same time, Life Spirit loves, because it must love. In a state of grace, one cannot help but love. The expression of grace is an overflowing of love, beyond its capacity, in boundless love. Paradox. In inward conversation, St Paul tells us “And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient unto the ….” It is always more than enough for our needs; yet, one always craves more, and always receives more. Paradox.
In street language, grace and forgiveness, are giving someone an undeserved break and an opening, and therein lies its power in Life Spirit. We humans didn’t deserve a break, but we received one, in the gift of Christ. Grace is like that. Life Spirit loves, and it doesn’t calculate worthiness. It seems most prodigal in lost causes, but it is always redemptive, and its application is always appropriate. It is always and ever beautiful, with a beauty which is elegantly tasteful. In this spirit, creative forgiveness should always be the easiest thing possible, if not done for ourselves.
There is more. In grace there is always more.
