I like to use this practice on the breath when I find myself getting too easily riled up, those moments when I need to remind myself of a saying of the Sufi saint Nizamuddin Auliya: “If someone places a thorn in your way and you place a thorn in his way, there will be thorns everywhere”—especially when I sincerely wish to drag whole thornbushes in someone else’s way. Breathing in “Ghaffār” and breathing out “Ghafūr” takes me very quickly to a much happier place. As a practice of just a few repetitions at the end of the day, it helps me let go of grudges both new and old. Come to think of it, holding those grudges is not unlike holding thorns on my own heart. If, as the adage has it, the person who repeats the insult is the one who insults me, revisiting past offenses is not only another thing to forgive myself for; it can bring the healing that takes the sting out of the hurt, and heals it. Ya Ghaffār, ya Ghafūr. That gold that does the mending? We find that deep within us, too.
There are other divine Names that invoke the spirit of forgiveness—enough to amount to a real percentage—and every spiritual tradition has its own invocations of that spirit. There’s sure to be one that’s useful for you. Any prayer or practice that feels right will do—or we can simply repeat “All is forgiven” in the same way as the Sufi practices, at first out loud, then on the breath, breathing in “all is forgiven” and breathing out “all is forgiven,” and finally sitting in silence with the spirit of forgiveness. Perhaps you’ll come up with a new one.
These practices can be done with great effect even without bringing anything specific that needs forgiveness to mind, although if you can’t think of anything you’ve ever done for which you are rightly ashamed and sorry, or that someone else has done to you for which they damn well ought to be ashamed and sorry, you’re probably well under the age of five and aren’t reading this anyway.
It’s not that we have to be ready right now to forgive ourselves, or anyone else. It’s opening ourselves up to the possibility of forgiveness. Ultimately, we’re positioning ourselves as deeply as we can within the embrace of the One Love, so that as the difficult and embarrassing things come up, we can remember that being always held in forgiveness, we don’t ever again have to do, think, or say those things for which we are ashamed and sorry, and even the impulses behind them may soon simply cease to exist. Remorse, however painful it may be in the moment, is also a healing power—and the bridge that carries us from guilt, shame, or regret to forgiveness and compassion for our perfectly imperfect selves.
Later, we can bring a specific forgiveness prayer to the healing of the ancestors.
Sooner or later, all is forgiven.
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