Costa Rica

Alana :

Loving Forgiveness

T/R : S. Butterfield

June 11, 2002

Stillness practice and prayer.

T/R : Father, Mother, I surrender my thoughts to you. I open my heart and my mind to be cleansed by you. I seek to know your love so that I may give it away. Please guide me toward thy best service. Thank you for all the blessings you give.

Alana : Yes, this is Alana. (Alana is welcomed.) Thank you. We will create the heart room. Yes? (She goes through creation of the heart room, and accepts into the heart room various people suggested by group members.) And so it is. Into the heart room. Into the pool of love and forgiveness. Refresh your minds. Refresh your hearts. Drink in the living water of forgiving love.

There is the forgiveness of the other: the acceptance, they are who they are. Then there is the forgiveness of the self; the acceptance, you are who you are. This is on the human level: forgiveness of one another, and yourself. For being human. For being error prone. For being caught in the emotions of isolated perspective. For hurting one another. Forgiveness for who you are as human beings being human.

And when the forgiveness has saturated your being, you begin to understand - forgiveness is love, greater than any one of you, greater than your own desires, greater than your own desires even for the good, the true and the beautiful. You begin to understand and experience that you are part of that love, part of that "greater than," and you begin to know yourself as a child of God, beloved, and loving being.

A loving being must always learn how to forgive betrayal, limitation, mistakes of judgement and understanding. The forgiving perspective sees with love, is guided by love, is led by love, and leaves love behind wherever that perspective is allowed to rest upon the other.

Sometimes you must experience the pain of, shall we say, the unforgiving perspective, absence of forgiving love, in order to make that breakthrough into the greater understanding - the forgiving understanding which is greater than that perspective and understanding in which you feel the pain. This is a psychic pain, although on a world of betrayal and limitations of perspective physical pain may accompany your learning the lessons of love.

It is mastery of the mental human experience that is the key to opening the heart and the mind to greater love, a greater being. In the process of learning the lessons of love you will find the mental tricks and stumbling blocks that keep you chained to the post of unforgiveness, far from the living waters of love; even when you have achieved, let us say, a certain level of greater understanding, broad forgiveness, and ease of love, ease with love, as in the Brotherhood and Sisterhood of Comfort. This is when Legion¹s discipline becomes the handmaiden, if you will, of greater growth toward the experience of greater love.

The mind will stumble over the repetition of events. The mind will stumble over memories, sounds, smells, taste. Even good bodily feelings and some kinds of joy can be a stumbling block for the mind. So you practice honing that mind, filing those thoughts, focusing your attention upon that one single point where there is only love. The love within is tapped by the openness of the heart to fairness, tolerance, patience, love; and by the focusing of the mind upon the assurance that God dwells within you and can be known.

As you proceed through the lessons of loving forgiveness, forgiving him, forgiving her, forgiving yourselves, you first know God within you as you - loved, forgiven completely, and saturated with joy. Here, of course, lies the opportunity for error, for trickery: the error of understanding, the concept of arrival, the competition of achievement. One only knows God through complete humility and total gratitude.

So, we will, with complete humility and total gratitude, open the heart room to pour love upon those you have brought within, to fill them, and you, with love, and to allow love to flow outward. Thank you.

(Long Stillness.)

We have time for one more question. Is there anything urgent on your minds? The transmitter is satisfied and content.

Q : Why is it sometimes so difficult to listen to each other? I think of when we put our needs first, we are so important to ourselves, our needs are more important than the other, and then we stop listening to each other. (Yes.) And then I have to work more with my passionŠpatience.

Alana : Well, my beloved, may I say this. Both passion and patience work in this context! It is true you are important to yourself. Yes? And without this self-importance it is difficult to learn the lessons of love. So I would caution you from the idea that for you to put yourself first is not to be done.

What must be learned is how to surrender that self-importance in such a manner as to recognize, and acknowledge, the equality of importance that exists between oneself and another in love. You will often experience in this recognition and acknowledgement what some call the déjà vu, or others call "I¹ve known you in a previous lifetime," or as some simply say, "My God! You are just like me!"

In that recognition and acknowledgement the heart opens, and the mind steps with great assurance into the deep pool of love and forgiveness, allowing the living waters of love to flow. When you notice fear, doubt, and most forms of angerŠ.(Q : Fury!) Yes, fury would be one of those forms of anger. When you notice these, then beloved, you may teach yourself to hear that (fear, doubt, anger) within you as the call to recognition, acknowledgement and acceptance of the equality of love, the equality of forgiveness, for all.

You may then learn to step aside, as you might say, for a moment, and if you wish, to ask on of us, your teachers, to "shake their booty" as you might say, or take you into the dance of love, and you will see differently.

It is always a good practice, one that I have witnessed active in you and your beloved friends, to give voice, time and again, to what always bears repeating, "I love you. I am speaking to you with my love. If there is fear or doubt, I assure you of my love."

Equally so, beloveds, it can be quite useful to turn, first to listen to the love within, and then to listen to the love without. And when it is more difficult to hear the love from without, to practice, like you play with a kaleidoscope, shifting the pieces, the colors, the expression, until you can see the love you know resides within the other. In that moment, you will know, you will be guided, you will find the way to allow love to flow again. Yes?

Q : Yes. I don¹t want to forget that I am not alone.

Alana : Rather than wanting not to forget, may I suggest you want to remember? What is beautiful about two or more gathered together in remembrance of love, is that you may remind each other, which in a way is remembering each other together. Love. Love dwells within you. Love dwells without you. Love accompanies you every where you go, even into that which you call hell. Thank you.

Hakim : There is no greater love than the love that would have you know that you are loved. You are loved, beloveds. You are loved. You are loved. Thank you.

END