Here at the Galactic Free Press we normally focus on breaking down illusions, but today I'm going to defend an illusion. Illusions are not evil or wrong, all that stuff is an illusion in itself, it's just that issues arise when you believe an illusion is real. In fact I would say this is responsible for all the mental suffering on the Planet.
Look at a horror movie, the actors and the people watching know it's a movie, they're well aware it's an illusion. To get more emotionally involved, they pretend it's not an illusion for a while, but part of them still knows it's all an illusion. Now imagine how traumatic it would be for everyone if they forgot it was all pretend! A little change in perception can transform fun & games into a very frightening experience, and vice versa.
So which is "the most beautiful illusion"? Well from my perspective it's forgiveness. You may not have thought about forgiveness as an illusion before, but look at it, what exactly are you forgiving? If you forgive another, do you change something in them? Something may change in them as a result of the forgiveness, but that's up to them, not you. When you forgive another, what you're really doing is transforming something within yourself.
More often than not, when you forgive another, you're releasing your own judgment of them, you're releasing the belief that they have somehow "wronged" you. This whole belief that another has wronged you is an illusion, they simply didn't live up to your expectations, and you judged them for it. Holding a grudge doesn't help you at all, it's a kind of poison, and it doesn't really help the other person either, it often just reinforces negative behavior.
Forgiveness is the release of this belief that you've been "wronged" by another, or that you've "wronged" yourself. To forgive, you have to first believe that a "wrong" has been done, and this is why I say forgiveness is an illusion. If you didn't have any judgments in the first place, there wouldn't be anything to forgive.
If you still have some dualistic thinking patterns, you may believe I'm against forgiveness because I'm calling it an illusion, but that's not the case at all. I'm all for forgiveness, it's a wonderful tool for releasing pain, fear and illusion. It ends conflict and releases judgment. Forgiveness is something we can always use more of until there is no more judgment, only Love.
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