Reposted from my blog:
The power of Love and Forgiveness!
Published April 11, 2018 | By John Ashley
Love and Forgiveness
What is love exactly? I think all of us have asked that question more than once. Is it a certain level of compassion, is it an energetic field, is it super natural or inexplicable? I would say yes to just about any possible explanation of it, because although there are similarities in people’s experience of love, there are also a variety of way people try to describe the feeling.
At the core of it, is compassion, forgiveness, a sense of service to others, and a desire to feel cared for. One of the main components of love, is a deep emotional and seemingly spiritual connection. I personally feel there are different kinds of love, and things that we also confuse for love, and things we decide are love, just to fill in a whole in our soul for a period of time.
Kinds of love
You can find one kind of love, in the love you express to a family member, or a friend, with another more personally intimate kind of love expressed with a lover. Another kind of love is found in seeking compassionate service, through volunteer work, through sharing of your own personal experiences (such as on this website), so that others can benefit from your own personal experiences, and so that they might not feel alone in the suffering they also had/have to endure. There is great love in sharing our most intimate experiences, but it can be very difficult to do that openly in social media, or other venues. Here folks can share anonymously, or as themselves, or both.
To refocus though back to the topic at hand; with all of the strife in the world we can experience, and with the news so focused on dividing people, and their ideals, rather than finding ways to come together. I think we can all agree, that sometimes things are not feeling too great when we become regular participants in the consumption of negativity. This can come through the news, social media, music, movies etc. To bring more love into our lives, will definitely take a shift in our current social norms, and our current ways of thinking (as well as the stories we tell ourselves). For those who have spent some time in mediation, and with doing the inner work, it becomes readily apparent, that what is going on, is a spiritual battle more so than any other kind of battle in this world.
This is a spiritual battle
This spiritual battle consists of the normal duality that exists on this planet, which was designed for us to learn from, but taken to the extreme. Throughout history, there were ups and downs, with the negative wining out for a period of time (Napoleon, Hitler etc.), and times where great figures such as Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Confucius, made such a large impact on society because of their great teachings. The one thing all those great figures had was a love for all beings, and all things in nature, or as Jesus would say, Gods creations. Even the many years old channeled books “The RA Material” (which can be found on this blog for free download), refer to the love and the light of the one infinite creator.
Love and light are such a common theme, that it begs to question why. What is this light, usually described as white or golden light, with the white light being the purest? If one studies many of the claimed near death experiences, and the claims of remembering being born into this world, they all describe this white light, and an amazing feeling of encompassing love, and oneness with everything. The most unimaginable experiences are described. With that we start to realize, that we must all come from the same place, and all come here for different challenges, and for different purposes. No matter who we are though, and what our purpose, love and forgiveness stand out as the most important lessons of all, that we are all tasked with learning. Now this can take a single or multiple lifetime to achieve, but is best if we are at least aware of the power that love and forgiveness gives us in this life.
Our energies attract the kind of love that comes our way
For some people, love comes easily, and for some it seems very difficult. What tends to block the attraction of love energies into our lives, is in many cases things that affects us with negative energy. This could be an environment we are born into, or situations such as abuse we experienced while we were in our most vulnerable years, that we have never dealt with. Some turn to even more damaging behaviors such as addictions, or self-abuse, self-loathing, lack of forgiveness of self and others. It is a choice however to keep this negative energy going, and as we do, we are inadvertently affecting our Karma for every negative reaction. I believe there is a force of negativity in this world that wants to keep people from realizing their own personal power, and strength. And with that the negative side tries to dominate our lives. However, there is a much larger picture at play, and I believe that we are all going to ascend towards enlightenment and love no matter the negative influences we may feel.
If we choose to turn around our negative thoughts, and seek out the friendships of others, through offering our own friendship and love, we can easily defeat any bad influences. Even the stories of the holocaust survivors said “they can take my life, and the lives of those I love, but they can never take away my faith and my love”. In the worst of situations, it is our faith and our love, and the knowledge that death isn’t something to really fear, since we can know without a doubt… through the work of some great and amazing mediums, that life goes on, and no one really dies.
Earth is a school
Earth is a school, and sometimes it seems like not a very friendly school. I believe however, that everything happens for a reason, and that we do have some control over the outcome of our lives, as far as whether we live a negative, or positive life or not. Much of success in the area of love, self-love etc., has to do with forgiveness. This is with forgiveness of self and others, even when we disagree. For example, to not forgive your enemy, or those who have abused you, your allowing that abuse to continue in many ways. To see that we are all one, and that people that do things like this are damaged or not healthy souls, and souls in need of much healing themselves, and whom must have also been victims of multi-generational abuse themselves, is the level we must go to at some point in time in order to forgive.
I can’t possibly forgive
Many people will scoff at the idea of forgiveness in those cases, but it is in all spiritual, philosophical and religious teachings, along with the thou shalt not judge kind of mindset. Now that doesn’t mean we don’t seek punishment for those who choose to continue a pattern of abuse rather than to find ways to heal (that’s what Karama is for), or that we’d in some way have to continue to associate with that individual. The point is more that the forgiveness is for the victim more so than the perpetrator, and that has to come through some kind of determination about the imperfect humanity in all of us, and the subsequent release of the anger and fear associated with it. The first part of it, is with really talking about it, through therapy, a trusted friend, or through introspective meditation and really listening to your heart. Your guides are there for you, if you begin to build a relationship with them, starting with the practice of meditation. Many of those who are victims of abuse will go on to help others free themselves from the stronghold that hate has on them, and the effects that this experience continues to have with the lack of the power of forgiveness. This is the greatest battle for all of us in life.
Understanding love and forgiveness
To really understand love and forgiveness, we need to become more mindful of all things in life, and yes that means to love our enemies like Jesus did for example. This includes getting out in nature more, to ground ourselves, to be around the water, the animals, and other people as much as possible. This all helps to remove the fear that our perpetrators put into us, by not allowing them to rob us of our lives, and our ability to enjoy it. Some Empaths say they would rather be alone, than to deal with the energies of others, and to them, I would say we all have free will to choose what energies we are mostly focused on. We have the power to turn around most situations, just with our own thoughts and energies, and with our ability to send out loving energies to those around us, even that person that just cut us off in traffic. We’ve all been guilty of reacting to the selfishness of a dangerous driver, when in fact this will only end up attracting more of the same ultimately, through the law of attraction. Now I don’t believe all of the claims in the law, but there is some very good evidence, that this law is powerful in many ways. You can read about my thoughts on that in the article called “Is there a problem with the Law of Attraction?”.
This is all I can write this evening on the subject, but I will elaborate more on this topic very soon!
Namaste!
John Ashley
