Licking the Razor's Edge (2015)

*We have been told that we are to “protect ourselves” from all ex-friends, associates and
strangers who have insulted or wronged us; that we must establish “healthy boundaries”
against their future sins and “never forget” their original transgressions, and yet doing so
ensures an enduring loneliness within a life of endless conflict … Criticism and gossip
have never brought clarity to the line drawn between “friend” and “enemy” – they have
only inspired us to remain separate from one another.
The alternative to this immense futility is the one thing the ego fears above all others:
Forgiveness. And by “Forgiveness”, I do not mean a hollow utterance or an insincere
letter. In order to be effective against the fear that is the source of our dis-ease, our
Forgiveness must as active as it is selfless & Kind.
True Forgiveness does not condone or ignore the wrong committed, and yet it does have
the courage to look past all “evil” behaviors to the wounded individual who performed
them. True Forgiveness replaces condemnation with mercy, resentment with compassion
and anger with empathy.
And by doing so, it gives the ego of all fear-steeped
“perpetrators” the thing it fears more than anything else:
It gives Acceptance …
It gives Affirmation …
It gives Love.
And when this courageous choice is made, the fearful and the “bad” and the “mean” and
the ‘evil” have but one choice remaining: either flee in search of a victim elsewhere, or
awaken to the Kind Being they have always been, and have only temporarily forgotten.
I have personally enlievened this Truth in thousands of conflicts over the past decade of
my life, Victor Frankl has witnessed to this Truth in his work with those who suffered in
Nazi concentration camps, and Leo Buscaglia has affirmed that this Truth functions even
for those deemed “psychologically unfit” and “mentally ill”.
This practice also happens to embody “The Way” of Peace Pilgrim, Martin Luther King
Jr., Gandhi & Jesus Christ, and while it has been vocally preached by these and other
saints, it is far more than a mere pipe-dreamed platitude. No, this is a concept that
actually bears the “Good Fruit” of Peace … This is a Truth that flowers when it is
enlivened … This is a Truth that performs soundly and indiscriminately …
This is a Truth that WORKS.
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