Welcome to my weekly blog, Friday Feelings !

Last week, I wrote about the wonderful Dr Len and how he healed all those patients in Hawaii who were diagnosed as criminally insane. His method, the ancient Hawaiian practice of Ho'oponopono, focuses on the following:                           

a) I forgive you; b) I'm sorry; c) I love you; d) Thank you. 

Many people will just laugh at that.They know that such phrases are overused or used insincerely or expediently, i.e. out of self-interest (small 's' J) .

Maybe one needs to examine what these phrases really mean.

Today, we'll just look at that first phrase, I forgive  you.

But what does it mean?

The problem with the word  forgive, as in, I forgive you, is that it seems to place "I" on a higher judicial or moral platform than "YOU":                                                              
"I" (Yes. Me.) "Forgive" (Yeah, I know I'm a good guy)  "You" (Yes, you over there). 

So part of the problem is the pronoun ( "I" and "You").                                                  

Some people won't forgive or even accept forgiveness, even though they might have already ostensibly buried the hatchet.  'How dare she forgive me! '  they think.  'Who does she think she is? I'm the one who should be doing the forgiving!'

Of course, when you don't forgive, it's like holding a hot coal in your hand to throw it at the offender, as the Buddha put it.                                                              

So what exactly does the word forgive mean?  

We know that it's linked to its Germanic cousin, vergeben, geben meaning to give; the ver part of the German word  - the v is pronounced as  f  in German, so the  v eventually turned into the  f  in the  for prefix in English -  seems to have come from the original Latin per, meaning through, as in the Latin perdonare, donare to give, perdonare  to forgive, (we have the word pardon from that), which presumably means to give through and through, to give completely. Give what?  Give away any wish for retribution, I guess, completely give up any desire for revenge, something like that.  Hence,  forgiveness.                       

No wonder it's confusing!...K

The Irish word for forgiveness is maithiúnas (mah-hoo-nass); maitheas (mah-hass) means goodness. You could say it is the giving of goodness. The mother kisses the naughty child; that makes more sense than saying, 'I forgive you' !  Now that makes more sense to me.

Nevertheless, I feel that in forgiveness there is no giving or receiving. You see, there is nothing to forgive. Real forgiveness is always to accept the wrong-doer but never, of course, the wrong-doing. Society should punish the wrong-doing, not the wrong-doer. How do you punish the wrong-doing without punishing the wrong-doer?  By never confusing the doer with the deed.                                                                                                                                       

Punishing  the wrong-doer is punishing ourselves. Forgiving others is really forgiving ourselves for being asleep, for the unconscious action of being asleep at the wheel.  

So who was Dr Len forgiving?  He was forgiving himself. As he said himself, he was forgiving that part of him which created the conditions in which crimes were committed by the patients he had never seen.                                                                 

But, I hear you cry, Dr Len is not his patients!

Of course not. You're right. Dr Len is Dr Len. The patients are the patients.         

You are not your reflection.

But your reflection is clearly you.

Well, that's what I feel, anyway.

What do YOU think?