🍀 FORGIVENESS, RUNNING & ENLIGHTENMENT —WHAT DO THESE THINGS HAVE IN COMMON?
Some people say that in order to succeed in life, to reach a state of peace, freedom, mental tranquility, bliss, joy, enlightenment, all that is needed is to forgive, to let go... It is a nice concept but it doesn't work that way, life is like a marathon.
Let's do an analogy and we will call your life a life-track.
Imagine your life as a 100-miles long marathon and each mile is composed by a series of events. These events are all the experiences that you've had in this life.
Say you had an argument with someone and things ended the wrong way; you never talked again. Johny the barber comes and says that in order to heal, you have to forgive, and you trust Johny and start several forgiving exercises.
You say to yourself that you no longer care, that it is all over and you forgive, but this doesn't work. You even write down an apology, burn it and mentally let it all go, but something still remains.
Forgiving is a growth process. In order to forgive we have to grow. Is not that we say or decide that something can no longer affect us, some things stop affecting us when we reach a certain point.
Life is like a marathon. We get on our life-track and start to run. Each mile is composed of certain events, say the track is 100-miles long. The event that is causing you frustration can be reached when you reach ten miles, you walk, rest, run... Once you reach ten miles, regardless if you belief it or not, accept it or not, the event that was once a frustration comes out of its own to the surface and dissolves. You have an experience and you can feel it and think/remember, "Oh, that one, it doesn't affect me anymore; I forgive." And it is gone. But you had to run ten miles before being able to let it go.
Some people are not even on the track. Some people are sitting, watching; some are walking, others are running. Some people are even adding more miles to their life-track and are not moving forward, instead of 100 miles it gets to 200 miles, 300 miles and it grows.
Reaching the end of the track in one life is the goal.
You can add more miles, new experiences, but it is wise to process more experiences than the ones you are adding to your mental-track. Say you add two miles weekly, but you cover ten, so eventually you will get to the end.
Once you run through all of your life experiences, all the miles; once you process all your mental impressions —sanskaras; bring them out of the subconscious and make them conscious, you've reached the end. At this point a feeling joy presents itself, bliss, happiness, mental peace, you've reached the goal, this is what the sages call enlightenment.
Once you are free, you can wish for anything and instantly get results. But as soon as a new experience is materialized, you just created a new track, and once again you have to run.
There is a way to have experiences without creating a new mental load, you have to perform the action but detach completely from the result. Just do, just be... And the race is over. This moment now is the real goal.
Namaste.