Can you help provide us with a good understanding of the purpose of forgiveness and its power to help change people and situations for the better? How does that really work?

If you think about all of the human conduct that is harmful from the spectrum of the least to the greatest, those things that may be annoying and selfish people indulge to make others uncomfortable, to the extremes of treating people unfairly, being dishonest, being disruptive, causing harm through emotional distress or physical actions to punish, to harm, to wound, or even take a life at the extremes—all reflect an absence of love on the part of the perpetrator. When the perpetrator is met with an absence of love by the people around them ready and eager to judge and condemn them to suffering of some kind, what does that truly accomplish other than to reinforce the notion the perpetrator is an outsider, is unworthy, is a lesser being, and is looked down on? All of which are often the cause of their misbehavior to begin with because they are reacting to what they feel is unfair treatment and being a flawed individual in a flawed life, and being shut out in some way, and it is natural to feel not only sadness but resentment and even anger because this is rarely deserved. So, to deal with perpetrators, the answer for them is to raise them up in some way. So how can that be done without condoning their conduct or even encouraging it? Because it would certainly not serve to reward evildoing let alone ill-considered breaking of rules that cause harm and inconvenience to others. And if you think about what is missing in the perpetrator, it is an absence of love, absence of experiencing love from others, and absence of love for themselves that allows them to act in a nondivine way and even engage in depravity. The answer must be putting love back, in some way or another. Where is that to come from? It can be bestowed ultimately by the divine in response to their need to return to the light, but as living, breathing human beings in the physical, we cannot intervene and intrude on their lives. Karma will begin to teach them lessons if they are open and capable of learning from what befalls them when they make too many missteps, but often the lessons only reinforce their suffering and they are powerless to find and employ any kind of positive workable solution for their life dilemma. They are often so beaten down and devoid of the ability to feel love because it is so absent and a situation of such long-standing, they are fairly far gone and are very hard to reach. The only thing that can do the job is to show them love and, by the contrast with their life experience, open a door so they can see the light finally and perhaps for the first time in some cases. This creates a possibility for change but it must come from somewhere. This is the responsibility of fellow humans to deal with their brethren. It is not always easy and is not a natural first impulse for many to find ways to nurture evildoers and the downtrodden who have much misguided thinking and may be quite unpleasant to be around, but it is their only hope that an act of loving kindness comes their way finally and shows them higher possibilities. To use forgiveness in this way is divine, and the highest calling and expression of divinity one can bestow on another. Forgiveness is love in its purest form and, therefore, is the greatest of healers because it is the ultimate answer needed by the perpetrator who has, in the choices made, fallen from grace, and love is what is missing in their world and their personal experience and is the way back for them. Forgiveness is the most effective way love can communicate and reach them effectively to be a catalyst for change because it also recognizes there are wrongs needing to be righted so it is not love given blindly, heedlessly, and thoughtlessly as though nothing has transpired of a negative sort and the person is being treated just like anyone else, so their bad behavior doesn’t count and is being ignored. This is not appropriate because there are consequences for wrongdoing and people need to reckon with their past history—karma will see to this. So anyone attempting to reach a troubled person who has been a perpetrator needs to make it clear that love is given not because of their actions but in spite of their actions, knowing there is a bigger person and a more important agenda, and no need to define the perpetrator by their misdeeds alone. That is why forgiveness is so very powerful, because it is a reshaping of reality through encapsulating the meaning of all that has transpired but putting it in the language of love and holding a vibration of the highest kind. People are thirsty for love and this is why love can get through to them—it fills a deep human need and yearning no other energy can provide.