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QaR
August 2008 
Dharma
Seeker
As I was making bread this morning, I began to meditate on Jesus saying that the only unforgiveable sin is to blaspheme the Holy Spirit. To blaspheme means to, literally, to count as nothing. So the unforgiveable sin is to count as nothing the Holy Spirit.
Since the Spirit of God dwells within us, how can we blaspheme? One way is to live contrary to the gifts that God has given us. We are apportioned God's Spirit each one so that we may incarnate God into the world. We are given a little bit of who the Infinite is to be the infinite to those we come in contact with and the world at large. If we count this as nothing and pursue other avenues, do we not blaspheme?
In the Gita, we are encouraged to strive in our own Dharma than to attempt to live another's. In other words, we are to live out who we are. If we attempt to live in another's Dharma, we will be afraid and feel insecure.
The Buddha encourages us to have a right livelihood. We are, again, told to live within our Dharma, our Path. Only then can we hope to gain enlightenment. Only then can we discover the Self, the Divine within.
Well, my Dharma now says it is time to put my loaves into the oven. To leave them out and never finish would be to make them half baked. Our lives are half baked when we refuse to live who we are, who we are meant to be. Do we dare make the Spirit half baked?
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At your encouragement, I would like to ask one question. What do you mean by “unforgiveable”? If I may, it would seem that to hold something unforgiveable would be perhaps…unforgiveable.
In the passage I was quoting, Luke 12.10, Jesus says that blaspheme against the Holy Spirit will be not forgiven. Granted, he does not say who will be the one not forgiving. Is it God? Is it the person themselves? The question I was trying to raise was, what would that sort of blaspheme look like.
If we hold something unforgiven against someone, I would agree might well be unforgivable in itself. The next question, it would seem,is, can God hold anything as unforgiven? The answer to that might well reside within our own spirits.
I think that the term forgiveness is perhaps an inappropriate term to use as we currently understand it. Old school forgiveness implies that you have done something wrong against me but that I am willing in my graciousness to forgive you. This situation reeks of duality, you vs. me, your fault, not mine. If as I hope, God is above the realm of dualities, this type of forgiveness can not exist regardless of how highly we think of it.
“Quantum forgiveness” (I can't remember at the moment who used that phrase) may imply a state of love to others as if they are ourselves, oneness, nowness(?), right pathness, non-dukkha, etc.
Anyway, thank you for the oportunity and invitation to speak. Mat