Over the past year here at Victory of the Soul, we have been exploring the concept of forgiveness. I became interested in forgiveness in the course of writing about grief, and thought I would write a single essay about it. I did not set out intentionally to write such a long series. The subject is a big one, yes, but I also found that holding a long arc was a kind of contemplative practice as much as it was an intellectual inquiry, and a useful antidote for the sort of short-form creation and consumption to which we are currently prone. I will admit, too, that this endeavour has worked on me as much as I have on it, in its slow and subtle way, and helped my psyche to untangle knots borne of complicated family dynamics.
While the essays will continue to be available on Substack through a paid subscription, I have also collected them in a single PDF volume. Because the writing is conceptually dense and deliberately restrained, I have supplemented the essays with a Reading Companion and a set of visual schemas designed to orient attention and support immersion in the material, as well as audio voiceovers of each essay.
Readers engaged in reflective or relational work, including therapists, counsellors, teachers, and those with established meditative practices may find these essays useful. Those drawn to philosophical or psychological inquiry who are willing to follow the development of ideas across multiple domains may also find them interesting. This work does not aim to provide immediate guidance or resolution. It is written for those who are comfortable working through conceptual difficulty, remaining with unresolved questions, and examining forgiveness from moral, spiritual, psychological, and relational perspectives at once.
I offer these essays with belief in the power of forgiveness, and in the hope that they may be of some use when forgiveness is difficult. Forgiving is one of the soul’s great victories, and being forgiven one of its great graces.
- Atmanjeet
The essays, audios, Reading Companion, and visual schemas are available for $29 at https://www.victoryofthesoul.life/forgiveness
