Excerpt from "Forgiving the Unforgivable: The Power of Holistic Living"

Excerpted from FORGIVING THE UNFORGIVABLE: The Power of Holistic Living – The True Story of How Survivors of the Mumbai Terrorist Attack Answered Hatred with Compassion by Master Charles Cannon with Will Wilkinson 

In November of 2008, Pakistani Muslim terrorists attacked Mumbai. One of their targets, the 5-Star Oberoi Hotel, was where Virginia based spiritual teacher Master Charles Cannon and twenty-four international associates were staying. During the ensuing 45-hour siege, four in their group were wounded and two long time members were killed. When rescued by SWAT teams and interviewed by the international media, the survivors expressed compassion toward the terrorists, offering words of forgiveness, not accusation. This catalyzed a deluge of e-mail messages and phone calls from around the world. “I am inspired by your response,” people wrote. “How did you get to be the way you are?” And, “How can I learn to be that way too?”

Three years later, Forgiving the Unforgivable provides the answers. Excerpted from the book:

It’s easy to see the urgent challenges in our world and agree that a responsible person should be concerned to help the world become a better place. Those who get active with social causes and work on the “real” issues can become increasingly depressed and desperate, realizing from hands on experience just how intractable many of our chronic problems are.

Likewise, those who choose an inner path can become increasingly convinced that nothing can be done about all that. They retreat deeper within themselves to find peace in meditation.

As new world leaders, we integrate both worlds. We—and I am including you now, because you are reading this book and I’m sure there are good reasons for that! —express into the outer from the inner, knowing that all is one. We understand there is no separation.

Formlessness and form are connected by … us! We get it. We witness ourselves in that space between. This is who I am, what I am! I am this space, you are this space. All is One in this space. This space is holistic consciousness.

From this space, compassion emerges through you and through me, to heal our world, and it starts with what is closest to us. As we know this in our experience, we finally understand that true forgiveness, compassionate forgiveness, is not coming to terms with someone else or even with yourself. The secret of compassionate forgiveness is hidden in plain sight, right within the word itself: forgiveness, for – give – ness. To be forgiving is to be for giving. For giving, not taking.

Consciousness is always compassionately giving of itself. It selflessly empowers all and everything. Consciousness compassionately gives and gives and gives … of itself … to itself … for the sake of itself … because there is no other … there is only One. To experience yourself as the compassionate and eternal giver is to become a master, the mastery of being fully human.

© 2011 Master Charles Cannon and Synchronicity Foundation