Alan Watts: Forgive yourself – Teach

We all make mistakes

We all said what we wish we didn’t have and did what we wish we could undo. But if you look back honestly, you will see that at that time, with your understanding and awareness, you are doing your best.

“Condemning one’s past is like scolding a child for not knowing calculus.”

You were using the tools available (or lack of clarity) and you were in your life. Every mistake is part of the road that takes you here.

Step 1: Self-sympathy

Forgiveness does not start with grand gestures, but a simple recognition: even the best clumsy or confusion, you are always trying your best. Seeing this is softening. Softening is beginning to forgive.

Forgive yourself will not eliminate the past or pretend that it did not happen. It sees the past – the experiment of living. Every choice, every mistake, every demanding word is not a crime to survive, but a step to learning how to walk.

Put down the stone

Most of us will slap their mistakes in sacks like stones, dragging them year after year. We replay the scene in our minds, hoping we can edit the script. But the past has been done. Learn to open the direction of progress; autonomy is death.

The sympathy for yourself is to let the stone fall off and see that you are no longer the stumbling person- you are the one who learns.

This is the first step towards freedom.

See others through the same lens

For yourself, for others. People don’t act completely clearly. They act from the scope of consciousness and the scope of conditions that shape them. When someone is bitter, it’s because bitterness is rooted in their hearts – usually from wounds you may never see.

“Totally condemn them is to forget that they have lived in their own punishment.”

Seeing this allows you to forgive without causing harm. You may still walk away – no hatred.

Judgment and understanding

Judgment is quick and easy. Understanding requires effort – requires us to stop and imagine the inner world of others. This is the wisdom of empathy: seeing yourself and another person in yourself. Their anger, chaos, and blindness are a reflection of everything you carry at other times in your life.

“Forgiveness is no longer a moral obligation. It becomes a natural reaction.”

Break the damage chain

Pain breeds itself like contagiousness. Without consciousness, what we pass on to us. Forgiveness is refusing to play that game.

Forgiveness says, “This stops here.”

This is how you recover your freedom from endless repetition of damage. You will be the breakout in the chain – the point where pain no longer doubles.

Forgiveness as Release

Forgiveness does not always mean reconciliation. It often happens quietly in the privacy of one’s own heart. You might forgive someone but still choose not to walk next to them again.

“Resentment only burns those who hold it.”

Letting go requires not only releasing the other person, but you are yourself. You are no longer bound by their stories.

Empathy is the highest intelligence

Smart wins the debate. Transcendence changes the heart. It asked, What pain caused this action? No one wakes up and chooses cruelty. They get there through a network of reasons and can’t even be traced. Seeing this eliminates judgment and replaces understanding.

Unity and Total

On the deepest level, forgiveness is not even moral behavior. It’s a recognition of unity – the people who hurt you are not really separated from you.

“Hate them is a part of yourself.”

In this vision, compassion flows naturally with breathing. Forgiveness itself is because you think there is never any separate forgiveness.

Let life be

When you stop asking for perfection for yourself or others, you start to see the beauty of clumsy dance in your life. Forgiveness does not eliminate the past; it releases grip.

Forgive yourself. Forgive the world. Not because it is noble, but because it is the only way in which life can remain mobile.