There Is No Defense Against Love
When you encounter people who are angry, treat them with love.
That means to be kind, tolerant, patient, and forgiving with angry people.
Loving and forgiving others are two things the world needs from everyone in order to heal.
Human beings naturally have a selfish, unforgiving, and fearful nature, which includes anger, intolerance, judgment, impatience, greed, jealousy, envy, doubt, worry, revenge, sloth, gluttony, lust, control, and pride.
These character defects stem from our fear-based instincts, which are designed to assist us to survive.
Our survival instincts make us tribal, so that we want to pick sides: us against them.
That’s why we like to root for sports teams or to choose sides in politics.
Before modern civilization, we could not make it alone, so our individual survival depended on belonging to a tribe.
We had to fight other groups to compete for resources.
In modern societies, this competition expanded into systems of government.
Unconditional love and forgiveness are not a natural part of human nature after puberty.
However, we do see love and forgiveness in the “innocence” of younger children, long before puberty sets in.
After puberty, we all lose love and forgiveness to different degrees.
After puberty, more and more selfish survival instincts kick in, which make us conditional givers, expecting money, sex, or control in return.
We can only experience unconditional love through unconditional giving—that is, by giving to others with no expectation of anything in return.
However, when you think of unconditionally giving away your resources, your fear says, “Don’t do it! You don’t have enough for yourself.”
To give unconditionally to others, that fear must be overcome.
That fear is a liar.
If you give money to others freely with unconditional love, it will come back to you in the future.
Fear tells you that that is not true, but it is.
The sooner people can practice this with faith, the sooner this truth will be revealed to them.
Our Creator’s true nature is unconditional love and forgiveness.
When we express love in action, which is to give unconditionally with no expectation of money, sex, or control in return, we are allowing God to express Himself through us because God is love.
When we love and forgive others unconditionally, we are allowing God to participate in our lives.
Then we are no longer separate from Him.
If you don’t choose to overcome your lying fear by expressing love through unconditional giving, you will not experience a union with God.
You will remain separate from God, and therefore separate from unconditional love, which is a painful state of being.
God is unconditional love and forgiveness.
Human nature is unforgiving.
Sometimes sick, ignorant, or criminal people harm us for no reason caused by us.
In some instances, we are truly the victim of another’s selfish, harmful actions.
How do we deal with resentments that we haven’t caused?
The answer may initially seem impossible, but the resentment that you feel only hurts you.
Forgiveness goes against your feelings of “justified” resentment.
However, forgiveness is the ultimate solution, because the forgiveness is actually for you and your freedom from the resentment.
To forgive others despite your “justified” anger is no easy task.
But resentments are the number one block that hold us back from unconditional giving to others.
To be truly free, you must forgive others who have harmed you—but that is a hard choice to make.
So, how do you practice forgiveness?
How do we forgive others and ourselves?
The only thing we need is the willingness to do it.
The greatest first step is to become open to forgiving others.
Then, when a thought comes into your head about individuals whom you dislike, hate, or resent, say to them in your mind or out loud, “I completely forgive you (mention their name); I break the chain of hate that links me to you; may peace and love be with you; you are free; and I am free.”
When thoughts of those people come up again, say in your mind or out loud, “I have forgiven you; bless you; and may peace and love be with you.”
If you repeat that last sentence every time the people come up in your mind in the future, you will find that some point all your hatred, resentment, and dislike have disappeared completely, and your forgiveness of them is complete.
Next, forgive yourself for harming yourself in any way.
Repeat to yourself, “I forgive you (say your full name); may peace and love be with me; I am free.”
Afterward, if thoughts of past guilt come up again, say, “I have forgiven myself for that; may peace and love be with me; I am free.”
You will find that you have forgiven yourself, and no longer sabotage or punish yourself, or create limitations in your life.
It is by forgiving others that you are forgiven yourself.
Human beings are not naturally forgiving.
However, if we try with our free will and imagination to practice blessing our enemies, silently desiring, or saying out loud that we want peace and happiness for them, we will become free of our resentment, hate, and anger.
Forgiving unlocks the poisonous chains around your heart.
By forgiving others, you are practicing unconditional love.
You reap what you sow, so the love and forgiveness you have given comes back to you.
By unconditionally loving and forgiving others, you are opening the channel for our Creator’s loving spirit to flow through you.
God wants to participate with us here, but most people block Him out.
God is real.
Some people say that “it’s always darkest before the dawn” and “don’t give up before the miracle happens.”
But God will reveal Himself to anyone who practices unconditional love and forgiveness.
It is so beautiful.
God’s loving spirit is separate from our ego, mind, and instincts.
He wants to express His love through us, if we will only surrender our will to His.
To let Him in, we have to deny our strong selfish instinctual feelings.
That involves overcoming our strong urges to be unforgiving and revengeful toward others.
Instead, we should practice giving unconditionally to others and forgiving them for their trespasses against us.
The Prayer of St. Francis sums up the entire core message of the Golden Rule:
Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, I may bring love;
where there is injury, I may bring pardon;
where there is doubt, I may bring faith;
where there is despair, I may bring hope;
where there is darkness, I may bring light;
and where there is sadness, I may bring joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.