The following discussion focuses on self-forgiveness as one of the acts of life that fills experience with purpose. It brings love to a place where it wasn't before and transforms the spot by bringing a different fulfillment.

When we do self-forgiveness, the channel that opens up is inside. We initiate a channel from the basic self through the high-self. Through that channel, we stand in the light and reconcile our belief with the truth of self. In essence, we align with the Holy Spirit and declare to the basic self that the limiting belief or separation is discontinued and replaced with essence of virtue it was blocking. For example, you may forgive yourself for believing you are unlovable. By so doing, you tell the basic self to align with your innate loving as an internal and transcendental source.

The sense that the energy is outside comes from the awareness that the source of transformation is outside the system of the belief, which is the self-concept, or status-quo. The transformative energy is embedded in our depth. In quantum fashion, when we forgive ourselves the inner and outer source act as one. The self-forgiveness tells the basic self to change and invites the high-self to transform the limitation. This action communicates a change in our relationship to the unconditional love that is God. This changes the way we are nested in the personal and universal field. The self-forgiveness changes how our consciousness is nested in the One. So the transformational energy is outside and inside of us. A simple movement of the heart, like kindness, has a similar effect. It is a technique. It is also a remembrance of self. We re-place our selves into the givingness of self that preceded the taking from self.

©Copywrite, Robert D. Waterman, 2004

This section is extracted from Robert D. Waterman's book
Self-forgiveness, an Act of Life (1976).

Though the temptation is there to think of self-forgiveness as a technique, it does not function so in practical application. The concept will be developed by elaborating on fifteen qualities of self-forgiveness.

1. The deepest tendency within humankind is toward balance and growth. All urges, needs, desires, and accomplishments somehow stem from our own archetype seeking to fulfill itself.

2. Whether the individual works with or against those deepest tendencies is a matter of choice. Humankind rules his life by choice and in experience man dramatizes who he is. Regardless of age he will meet situations and subdue or be subdued by them according to the meaning structure through which he perceives the events. He may alter what was already known in order to adapt, or move blindly in the face of his own darkness. The choice is an expression of love and will.

3. Situations in themselves are not imbalancing; our response, the meaning we impute, the choice we make, can imbalance. Any experience represents an opportunity for growth and any situation we encounter has the potential to integrate or dissociate our ability to live from our inner vitality.

4. Though we may not be able to change past situations, we can change the meaning we carry within us regarding those events. Although an experience is in the past, we can relive the experience in the present and change the meaning we made out of the experience. Recall, in itself, is not enough. The interrupting experience must be transformed. We can change our mind and as we do, the pain evoked reactivates the inducing mental-emotional judgment, releasing both as the pattern becomes conscious. As these patterns are systematically released, the natural flow of life-force through the body is reestablished, as well as mental, physical, and emotional well-being.

5. Choice always involves three components: thought, emotion, and action : symbol, energy, and direction : love, will, and consequence. We cannot avoid choice. Abdication of choice is a choice. As we cannot avoid choice, we cannot avoid responsibility. The understanding of the self is acquired through experience. The process of acquiring is perfect in the beginning and always will be. The step called mistake is in a sequence which is a perfect process of experimental discovery. If we attach our identity to the mistake, we are in effect a mistake. After a while our identification as mistake rather than a maker-of-mistakes leads us to the philosophical conclusion that we have no power to alter that conclusion. Our ability to create is blurred by identifying with the mistake. We lose the ability to recycle our mistakes through the "purifying fires" of the Higher Mind. To fear to act because we may be wrong is the greatest wrong because we abdicate our "dominion" and our "inward kingdom" which results in our outward domain falling to external forces and controls. We narrow our conscious awareness to a small realm of threatening shadows.

6. Cause and effect have in each life a historical pattern of connectedness and are woven and re-woven through individual understanding of its symbol, energy and direction.

7. The reference, or locus, for the natural tendency within humankind for balance and growth is within. It is hard to imagine the potential for creative human influence when individuals recognize the degree of inner authority that can be exercised. The locus of intellect and love within us is far deeper than we perform -- it is at the depth that we are a Being that is one with the Father-Mother principle, and yet still deeper, the unmanifested Source. In this Higher Self reference we so loved the possibility of ourselves that we created a begotten personality as an instrument of growth and change so that we might understand our eternality, and thus live consciously in our eternal perception as co-creators with the Divine.

8. Each choice, large or small, has an effect (a consequence) of either moving a personality closer to his or her deeper being or further away.

9. Self-forgiveness is a choice with an outcome of greater cooperation with the inherent, internal tendency toward balance and growth. When in response to circumstances we create self-pity, injury, fear, grudges, etc, we deny to ourselves the use of a great resource, presence intellect and power from within us. Divine love is unconditional and ever forgiving and is available to us directly through the Higher Consciousness. When we attach ourselves to an external reference through judgment, we block the consciousness of redeeming love and super-conscious wisdom from our use. When we relive the energy and symbol that blocked us and forgive ourselves, the Divine Balance is allowed to enter our personality and establish the same condition in our personality world that exists in our higher consciousness world.

10. The activation of self-forgiveness is enhanced or impeded by group-process.

11. Self-forgiveness is as effective as it is sincere; yet, is activated according to the individual ability level. Sincerity is a skill. You may be at a level of sincerity and tell me that you will do this or that, yet in ten minutes you may have grown in sincerity and discover that in reference to now you lied, yet it seemed true then. If you take on guilt or try to justify the discrepancy you will lose the gain you made. However, if you confront your lie and take action to fully utilize the gain, the lie becomes a positive action and moves into a corrective law. We may re-experience a distorted moment and forgive ourselves and release much.

12. Self-forgiveness is a conscious choice, a subconscious realization and a higher -consciousness acceptance (It is not a belief). Self-forgiveness is not a belief -- it is a knowing and as such our choice and statement places it as an active element within us. When we re-experience the past and choose consciously to change, corollary patterns occur subconsciously and super-consciously. There is a realization of the impact of the conscious choice: the experience of release and change of meaning is recorded in place of the old interpretation. Super-consciously new vistas present themselves to the conscious mind. Reprogramming can change patterns in the subconscious mind through repetitious affirmation -- but self-forgiveness changes the patters in the subconscious mind through direct intervention of the Higher Self.

13. Self-forgiveness is spontaneous in people who have gained the ability to relate to the unity of life with the entirety of their being. Even though we may be self-realized beings and all our conscious levels are highly synthesized, we are still here, still growing, and still confronted with choices and mistaken choices. The difference is that when our growth is more progressive than evolutionary, realization of the mistakenly applied energy is sufficient to release it. Release and understanding, both act and consequence, become spontaneous.

14. Self-forgiveness carries the implication that all events are purposeful and ultimately worthwhile. If self-forgiveness allows us to claim an understanding that we did not possess before, then the purpose of difficulty is to solve that difficulty, to understand, to extend and expand the ability level of our Soul -- it seems that all souls are equal in their perfection but not in their ability level. In this context, we conceive that we have never done anything that was not worthwhile. We were always worthy in in ourselves; it was the belief in attachment to error that created a sensation of unworthiness. When the sense of inherent worthiness returns, growth accelerates and balance is enhanced. Our quest is to learn to use our inherent worth to master life.

15. Self-forgiveness is economical - the best use of human energy that can be made out of any event, for experience is only wasteful when it is not used for growth, for greater understanding; we are wasteful to the degree we are ego-attached to our mistakes. There is a moral imperative in the understanding of energy and its exchange and perhaps the only moral imperative: "Unto thyself be true"; THYSELF -- not the belief patterns of the mind that masquerade as self. The personality is a garment, a vehicle by which our Being might enter the real of Earth to gain the wisdom thereof. It is to the Being that we are true. There is no dogma to re-alignment of the personality -- mind, emotion, and body -- with the Soul and Spirit, only self-forgiveness. We hold within us a vision of what we could be and an image of what we are -- how we handle this discrepancy is crucial.

The following interview was transcribed from The Healers videotape produced April 30, 1992 by Karen Cherniack and Lightvision Productions. The clients had aura balancing sessions with Ellavivian Power.

CLIENT BILLIE: At one point – and I'll never forget this -- at one point, this is a sweet old lady, man, right? I mean, this is a white-haired, sweet grandmother. I mean, it's everybody's grandma. At one time in the balancing, it got so difficult for me that I started getting a little jive and started doing a little two-step, like. And she smashed me on the shoulder -- man, she hit me so hard I couldn't believe it. She got my attention. And the whole balancing ended with a series of self-forgiveness, because she tied in some Bible stuff, like the Kingdom of Heaven is within, and God lives within the Kingdom of Heaven, right? And then she'd tie in where Jesus says, you're created in God's image, so if all of that is true, how can you be unworthy?

So, you know, I'm going -- I'm doing a little dance, like, you know, maybe I am okay. And it was the first time in this life time when I started looking at the possibility that maybe I am okay. And I didn't understand the purpose of all of this self-forgiveness stuff that we were doing; but I went along with it, because I didn't want to catch another rap on the -- somewheres, you know.

BOB ROUNDTREE: Aura balancers believe that the aura can actually become distorted or blocked or unbalanced by judgments we make about our life experiences, which in turn can cause physical illnesses or other manifestations. And at the core of these auric imbalances are feelings that lie deep within. Billie's auric healing session combined Ellavivian's balancing of his energy field with his own self-forgiveness, allowing him to release the blocks in his aura that were perpetuating his disease.

We asked Ellavivian to explain how this idea of self-forgiveness became such a critical part of auric balancing.

ELLAVIVIAN POWER: We lectured before the parapsychology forum in New York in one of the hotels. And there would be, oh, all the way from 300 to 500 people there. We're there that night, and we had all given our talks, and here comes this little old lady, and she had on this gray knit shawl. She walked up to Dr. Hunter and says, "I need an appointment." And Dr. Hunter says, "Well, I'm sorry but all the appointments are taken." She says, "Well, you eat lunch don't you?" And Dr. Hunter said yes. She says, "Well, I'll be there tomorrow. What time do you eat, 11:00?" And we said yes. And she had weeping ulcers on her legs, and she had to come over from New Jersey on the train. And so at 11:00, here comes knock, knock on the door. We open up the door, and here she stands, and she's got this basket, and she has homemade bread and has made these tuna fish salad sandwiches, and she had freshly squeezed carrot juice, and she had carrot cake.

And Dr. Hunter had her come in and take off the stockings, which were soaked by that time, and had us go in and wash out the stockings and hang them up to dry. And we started working on her. And at the end of the hour, why, her stockings were dry. She took her basket and she left. The next day, here she comes, and she had in her basket all of her goodies, and we washed out her stockings. And Dr. Hunter usually would come in at the end to check her out, and she looked up at her and she says, "Tomorrow you're going to heal me."

So the next day, here she comes. And we went through the same procedures, took her hose off and washed them. And she was on the table. And we had done the pendulum work, and I looked up and down the hall, and here come Dr. Hunter -- had her pendulum in her hand. And she walked up, and she always put her hand on the body. That's how she got in tune with it. And she dropped her pendulum in the aura, and then she said, "Why do you hate God?" And this old lady said, "Why shouldn't I hate God?" She says, "He took my mother and he took my father. He took all my brothers and sisters, my aunts and uncles, and I am left alone with these crying legs." And she was a nurse. And just at that moment -- "And I hate him," she says. And just at that moment, all those jackhammers stopped. And it was just like silence fell over the whole city. And then all at once, she said, "Oh, my God, what have I done to myself. What have I done to myself?" And she says, "Oh, Father, Mother, God, I forgive myself. I forgive myself. I forgive myself."
Dr. Hunter laid her pendulum down, and walked out. And she -- we go in and get her clothes. And before she left, Dr. Hunter came back into the room, and she looked up to Dr. Hunter, and she says, "I knew you could do it."

So that's how self-forgiveness came to be incorporated into the work.

RON HULNICK: It appears as though we've been given a cosmic delete button, which is forgiveness, so that we can literally erase or delete the judgments. So it's not uncommon in our work where people will bring up judgments that they have -- that they may go back for years and years and years and years, and they release them. And instantly, there is like a flood of well-being that comes through the system, a relief, a feeling of having let go of a heavy weight, that kind of a thing. To me, that is truly the healing process.

ELLAVIVIAN: It's incredible, the way that the energy will release out of that when someone says "I forgive myself." And then forgiving themselves, for creating it for themselves, for passing a judgment on themselves, for feeling guilty about whatever caused it -- there's many, many implications in it.

The person may even feel it in their physical body. They may have been carrying it for years and never known that they had any energy block. But when it's released and the energy flows back through again, they feel a lot better.

BILLIE: So through a series of self-forgiveness, I was able to take care of that. I didn't understand what they were doing, but it was working. I was feeling this incredible energy. I was feeling stronger than I had felt in a long, long time.

RON: The concept of self-forgiveness is becoming more and more accepted in the field of psychology, at least as I'm seeing it today. The work of John Bradshaw around shame, they use forgiveness a lot. He recognizes it. And more and more, I'm seeing psych books that are coming out that talk about the need for self-forgiveness as psychologically helping.

ROBERT WATERMAN: In the development of aura balancing, when they started, Dr. Hunter and Ellavivian Power and those folks that were developing that, hit upon this idea of self-forgiveness. It was like the epiphany of human existence, in a sense. That's a good word. It's where -- it's that moment that brings the meaning of life suddenly clear. It's like an epiphany. So the person's life is directed at realizing something larger of something that's hurt inside.

RON: So if we can move our consciousness into the place where we really can move into acceptance and don't do judgment, just do evaluation, and we behave on the basis of the evaluation for the highest good of all concerned, but we don't make the person wrong; when we make them wrong, we go into the negativity.

It's like there's the act of holding this bad thing against myself, so that I forgive myself, and I can -- and I can really allow myself to feel that forgiveness come in. The most amazing thing will happen that will drop down deeper, and they’ll drop into a place inside that is filled with love and compassion.

So we would say that healing, really, is the application of loving to the parts inside or outside that hurt. If you think about it, if you set a broken arm, that's a very loving thing to do to that arm. And I'm suggesting that this idea of healing energy is really loving energy. And I'm not saying anything that really hasn't been said for thousands of years by people who talked about those things.

CLIENT SHIVA: What it did for me was move me to a greater compassion for myself, for not knowing any better; for seeing that I was making the best choice I could at the time about something, or the best assessment, even, about it; and to forgive myself for not knowing better for such a tender and compassionate approach to myself, that had nothing to do with being the fighter that I was before that time. Nothing to do with that. I was just very macho and nasty with myself. Just so nasty. And self-forgiveness brought a much more softer and tender approach and let me release those things much quicker.

RON: If we can all learn to forgive ourselves and to forgive judgments that we've placed out, that one thing, to my way of thinking, would do more toward healing in all of the systems than any one single thing that I know of.

It's also very challenging, because most of us have not been brought up that way. We have been brought up to make people and things and situations wrong.

SHIVA: I can't make anything more important than loving myself. There's nothing I could do or say or any way I could be that could be bigger than my love for myself; or if I do that, the consequence is really negative. But when I make my loving more important and override anything else, that's what self-forgiveness is.

Do dolphins look for God? If they have never been separated from God,
why would they look? Maybe they swim in God as they swim the ocean.