June 19th 1967
Although you cannot feel or know of our presence, before we meet we are very near to thee and we listen to your conversations, and we read the thoughts emanating from your mind.
We have heard you talk about forgiveness and the dear sister who sorrows because she cannot find it in her heart to forgive. We do not want you to be anxious concerning this state, for it is all part and parcel of the training. And you have yourselves known, and we have too, times in our existence when we found it hard to forgive this one and that.
But now you cannot feel a real hatred or a strong dislike for any person, but you can feel a hatred and a strong dislike for a person's human nature, which is distorted and out of line. And this is good. For we do not tell you, and we cannot expect you, and we do not wish anyone to love that which is evil, and which is alien to God.
But, until a person, a child of God, has within himself a true realisation of his relationship to spirit, this one has not learned to respect and to love himself.
Therefore, not recognising the Spirit within himself, he cannot be expected to recognise the spirit, the seed of God, within another man. Therefore, when a person tells you that he cannot forgive this one or that, then you must understand that this one is not one as yet with the true, with the true spirit.
For when one becomes one with the universe and the essence of light and love, spirit, God, call it what you will, then that one recognises and acknowledges his unity, his link, with all and every one. And it is this thread of pure Spirit which is of great importance to him. He knows through the inner vision of this oneness, and he realises that all that is alien to this thread of pure spirit, will eventually fall away, leaving only that which is of pure essence, pure spirit.
This one has forgiven, absolutely forgiven himself, and has learned to love and to respect himself, the GREATER SELF, THE Spirit WITHIN HIMSELF. Being aware at the same time of his own human frailties, characteristics, traits in his own human nature which are not perfect and which he himself does not like or love, but is willing to overlook and forgive, knowing that that which holdeth all together, is within himself.
And so, we come and remind you of the words that many people say so many times, and so very often, and yet they understand them not. "Love one another, and love thy neighbour as thyself."
Love thy neighbour as thyself, meaning to say that until one learns to respect and love oneself, one cannot possibly love another being.
But, through the long experience of life in many worlds, one has built up another so-called being, a self one has created, a something or a someone absolutely akin to their own nature. And this one appears at a certain time during one's spiritual progress, and it is so real, and becomes so vivid to the inner vision, because of one's developed sensitivity, that one can almost see this being, and hates and loathes it for what it is.
It is made up of all one's faults, one's frailties, one's wrong thinking, one's mistakes, through the long ages, and one feels and detects a strong dislike for this thing which one recognises as one's human self.
And this is a time of triumph, and this is inevitable, this is a state which everyone treading the path must come face to face with. This self-discernment, this recognising within oneself all that is vile, all that is foul, all that is alien to pure spirit, to light, to love.
And then comes the moment when all fear must fade away, all hate for the so-called thing must go, and one must be filled with a true spiritual love and power of forgiveness for one's lesser self. And the, and only then, can one look upon another without condemnation, without contempt, without hate, and instead can be filled, even for the most hateful, the most sinning of sinners, a great compassion, because one has come face to face with his lesser self and realises that these things, these happenings, these thoughts on another one's mind, are exactly the same as his own, except, that the other traveller, who is far behind along the path, has not recognised, has not recognised the guilt, the old Adam, the old man, within himself.
And it is simply and only because of this lack of insight and knowledge and vision, that a person will say. "I cannot forgive this one, I cannot forgive that”. This is a sign that this one has far to go. But, the very desire to want to forgive, the feeling of guilt because he cannot forgive, is a great and glorious sign.
Do not be afraid concerning this one, for their feet are upon the right path, they want to forgive. They are asking for bread, and a stone shall not be given unto them. But to try to explain is almost impossible, for they must walk the path on their own feet. And this is another time when you cannot get off your wagon to make a prolonged stay on this vibration. For there is nothing you can say which will act in the same way as when you yourself came face to face with your lesser, grosser, human, self.
And so we tell you that you must never be afraid of this thing, of this being, which you have created. For it is of your own creation. But, you and only you, because you know of this terrific guilt within your own soul, can change it and transform it into the most beautiful, shining, glorious, heavenly, divine, being, an angel, a minister on the most high, and this you are going to do. You have forgiven yourselves, hate has left you, fear has gone, and just as you are, and without one plea, you stand at the footstool of the Father, you recognise the relationship, you know of the great link of Spirit through all mankind, and through all the angels and through all the great and lower beings through all the universe. And slowly but surely the old men is dying a natural death, and the resurrection is slowly but surely taking place. The true living, breathing Spirit is beginning to develop, to see and hear and to live.
This transcript makes a precise and unusual claim about forgiveness: that its real root is self-forgiveness. One cannot forgive another, it argues, until one has faced and made peace with one's own "lesser self" — a vivid, almost separate figure built from "all one's faults, one's frailties, one's wrong thinking," which the sincere seeker eventually comes to see clearly and, at first, hates. This confrontation is named as inevitable and necessary — "everyone treading the path must come face to face with" it — not a sign that something has gone wrong.
The turning point comes not through defeating or denying this lesser self but through forgiving it — which is what finally makes forgiving anyone else possible. Someone who struggles to forgive another, on this account, is not failing morally so much as revealing that they have not yet made this inward peace — they are "not one as yet with the true spirit." Crucially, the transcript insists this is not cause for shame: the very fact that someone is troubled by their inability to forgive, feels the guilt of it, is itself named "a great and glorious sign" — evidence the path is already being walked, not evidence of falling short of it.
"Love thy neighbour as thyself" (Mark 12:31) is read here in its most literal possible sense — not "as much as," but "in the same way and only after" one has learned to love oneself — since compassion for another's failings, the transcript argues, only becomes possible once a person recognises those same failings, unflinchingly, as their own. This is close to the psychological concept of shadow integration — Jung's term, met earlier in this collection through the Huxley/Jung transcript, for owning the disowned, rejected parts of oneself rather than projecting them outward — here given as the necessary root of real compassion rather than mere tolerance.