That is very hard for you to grasp because you have built such a convincing illusion, and because your bodies can and do experience intense pain – physical, emotional, and psychological – when abused or tortured. Also, those who inflict pain on others are, themselves, suffering from the most terrible fears and beliefs, and are striking out in terror – terror that they refuse to acknowledge to themselves and therefore bury under a cloak of denial. To be in fear is to be backed up against a wall with no hope of escape and no place to go. You have an expression for it: “To be between a rock and a hard place.” So you lash out! It truly seems that you have no option because you have seen others hurt and even killed when they chose not to defend themselves from forceful attack.
Fear dehumanizes, and it has been doing it for eons. When you are dehumanized you cannot recognize Love because It terrifies you; it is the antithesis of fear. But by no means everyone has been dehumanized – just enough to cause considerable harm and keep fear alive in just about everyone – and humanity is presently in the process of recognizing that the horrors it has perpetrated on itself over the eons out of its own FEAR of itself (all of itself, which is one) is due to the apparent absence or actual denial of LOVE during those activities. Those activities could not be entered into by anyone who is conscious, aware, and therefore open to Love!
As you embrace the Love that constantly surrounds you, your fear shrinks, dissolves, and dissipates, and it then becomes possible for you to see and understand the intense suffering buried unacknowledged in the depths of those perpetrators. Understanding allows you to feel compassion, and then offer them that instead of judgment. As all in the spiritual realms keep telling you, and re-emphasizing, Love is the answer to every issue, problem, disagreement, or area of conflict. Humanity is finally learning that lesson and putting what it is learning into practice. In recent decades, despite their suffering, many are forgiving the perpetrators of hate crimes. Occasionally, the media do report instances of this, but mostly it passes unnoticed except by those directly involved.
This active and intentional forgiveness is an indication of the enormous changes in attitude that are occurring all across the planet. Everyone holding their Light on high, intending to live lovingly and then putting that intention into practice, makes a big difference, intensifying the field of Love that envelops you. Do not be disheartened or discouraged by the violence and suffering reported in the media; instead, remind yourselves that the time for fear-driven ways of living are at an end, and send love and compassion to anyone or any situation of which you become aware, and in which suffering, by victims or perpetrators, no matter how caused, is being experienced. It is effective, it makes a difference, and it alters the energy fields of those involved by reducing the fear and stress being experienced, enabling them to draw back from instant knee-jerk reactions and reassess the situation with less fury.
Making a conscious intent at the start of each day to live lovingly and to be an open channel through which Love can flow constantly is an essential aspect of the life path you chose before incarnating, and it further strengthens the flow to remake that intent whenever you think of it throughout your day.
Your path homewards is unmistakable when you make a conscious choice to be aware of it. Frequently, however, the anxieties that you experience in the illusion lead you to engage with fear and make a choice that is unloving, and which will then take you on a diversionary path where you will re-experience lessons that you had thought were well learnt and had been left far behind you. It can be shocking and depressing for you, but it is not the end of the world; it is not a catastrophe, and it is not an irredeemable disaster. You do need to acknowledge the possibility that you made a mistake. . . no more than that. And then, if you ask, you will receive an abundance of assistance to regain your path.
Never fear that you might die in sin! Sin is of the illusion, it is unreal, but your belief in it can cause you untold concern and intensify any feelings of unworthiness to which you may be clinging. Feelings of unworthiness often lead to unwise choices when making decisions in your daily lives. Nearly all your cultures have been most successful in establishing a sense of guilt or sinfulness in their members from a very early age, and some of you have much greater difficulty than others in shedding that invalid self-judgment. When you are aware of harboring and experiencing such feelings, tell yourselves very firmly, even forcefully, that they are absolutely false. This does not mean that you have never made errors or mistreated others; it merely means that God will never judge you unworthy or will that you be punished.
If you have been unloving, try, if possible, to remedy your unloving words or actions; if it is not possible, send a loving intent to the person(s) wronged, and then FORGIVE yourselves. To truly forgive removes the feelings of guilt, self-blame, or unworthiness, and allows you to move forwards lovingly once more. You may need to make the intent to forgive yourselves more than once because the guilt has been so ingrained over many lifetimes. It is like a physical ache or strain that hangs on after you have overexerted yourselves, and which requires you to treat yourselves gently until the physical damage is fully healed.
And to forgive yourselves is to treat yourselves with consideration and gentle, loving respect. Give yourselves adequate time to heal because forgiving is a process of releasing old and outdated beliefs and habits which involved, and may often have seemingly demanded, that you engage in quite harsh self-judgment. When you cease judging yourselves harshly, then you can start to forgive others. If you are having trouble forgiving others, look inwards to discover what you find there that is unacceptable to you and release it.
Love is all-inclusive. If you exclude anyone, and that most definitely includes yourselves, it is but an imitation, a pretence of love. When you are having difficulty with self-acceptance and with letting go of self-judgment, remind yourselves that God loves you unconditionally in every moment, and if that is the case, as it most certainly is, then you have absolutely no valid reason for not accepting yourselves just as you are: perfect children of God. If you still have difficulty, then remind yourselves of occasions when your own children misbehaved and you lovingly forgave them, and then open to the realization that God is infinitely more loving and forgiving than you, as humans, can ever be!
Your loving brother, Jesus.