Forgiving Nero on Good Friday

Last Saturday night, I watched a film about the life of the Roman Emperor Nero, entitled Nero. I did so on the recommendation of a close friend, a gifted artist, who is well-versed in ancient Greek and Roman history. He prepared me for a film with a psychological slant on Nero. To my surprise, there was a spiritual message about forgiveness. Just moments earlier, on what was then the eve of Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week, I had been reflecting on forgiveness. This was the other synchronicity in the daily dialogue with the Divine (remember that, as the Mayans say, “God talks to us ALL the time”), I alluded to in the previous posting.

In the final scene, Acte, the love of Nero’s life, stands by the unlit funeral pyre where Nero’s body is lying. We hear Acte’s thoughts, “Nero had a dream of Rome, a dream of a better world.” Acte takes a flaming branch and lights the pile of sticks encasing Nero’s body. Referring to the fire that burned Rome during Nero‘s reign, we again hear her thoughts, “He [Nero] did not light the fire but the fire in his soul consumed him. Let us forgive him as we hope to be forgiven.”

What! Forgive Nero who fed all those innocent early Christians to the lions? But how can we? We can because we are all Nero. We are all consumed by the fire of desire to change the world everyday. It is as if we say to ourselves, “I need the world to be different before I can feel good and be at peace. I need my unreasonable boss to see I’m right and he’s wrong before I can feel good and be at peace. I need my wife or husband to agree with my point of view or I will remain disturbed and unhappy.”

Yes, the desire to improve conditions around us is fine but we can do so by taking a breath, relaxing, and doing so as we are strengthened by feeling good first. Then we are inspired to change the conditions around us as we breath freely with less tension. But we do so not because our peace of mind and well being depend on it.

The word spirit in many languages is equated with the breath. When Jesus died on the cross on that first Good Friday, he did so after he commend His Spirit into God’s hands. In little ways each day, we can choose to do the same by exhaling the tension we feel when we want to change the world. We can commend our spirit into the hands of the I AM That I AM awareness within us. It is the awareness that is not dependent on conditions: it is conditionless. What can I say about myself that is not subject to change while I draw breath on this planet? I AM. I exist. I AM this or that, a butcher or baker or candle stick maker is subject to change. Even my gender can be changed if I were to elect to have an operation.

Right now, allow yourself to feel the peace of choosing to cast the fire of the desire to change any conditions into the sacred fire of the all-consuming love of God Whose name is I AM THAT I AM. We can then tap into the peace of that consciousness within us when we become still and cease striving to change the world. Then we stop being consumed by the fire of our desire as Nero was. And, we can stop seeking revenge against those we feel wronged by as Nero did. According to the film, when his pregnant second wife died, Nero asked Saint Paul to raise her from the dead. But when Paul was unable to do so, he told Nero that it was not God’s will. Nero became enraged and thus began his slaughter of Christians.

When Jesus commended His Spirit into God’s hands, an earthquake shook the Earth. The thick curtain barring the way to the inner sanctuary of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The barrier to intimacy with God was removed. Just as the 8.8 earthquake in Chile shook La Tierra Madre to Her core and shifted the coastline of South America, practicing forgiveness today as Christ did is capable of causing an inner earthquake that can shake each one of us to the core of our usual sense of ourselves. As long as we cling to a body-based sense of ourselves, centered in the reactive reptile brain, forgiveness makes little sense. Revenge makes more sense. “You hurt me verbally or physically, I’ll get you back.” But when we remember that who we are is spirit, and the essence of that spirit is both breath and love, we can aspire to forgive as Christ did those who crucified Him.

• Today, resolve to retain your inner freedom by not allowing anyone or anything rob you of your ability to feel good and be at peace. Reflect on how it is in remembering that who we all are is love, we can learn to forgive the world for not being as we would like it to be at any given moment. Breathing in, commend your spirit to the inner freedom of the I AM awareness within you by silently saying to the offending condition (person, place or thing, e.g., an unreasonable boss, a traffic jam, or unpleasnat weather), “I AM NOT dependent on you being other than you are at this moment for me to feel good and be at peace.” Breathing out, silently say, “I will maintain my inner peace no matter what you do or say.”