Usually, forgiveness is seen as a process. This process is thought to start when someone offends another. Then the offended person chooses to ignore the offense and proffer (their understanding of) goodness toward the offender instead of anger, hatred or retaliation. Perhaps it would be good to give this process (so long called forgiveness) an appropriate name; let's call it "postgiveness". This postgiven version of forgiveness is a state of being, entered into by arbitrary decision as an oft-begrudged gift. It is given as the result of denial of emotion and a belief in the virtue of sacrifice. It is given after the incident to which it applies.

Forgiveness, on the other hand, is something given or entered into "before" any incident occurs or any offender is identified... hence the word forgiven or "fore-given". Although the usually understood theme of postgiveness as forgiveness can have value in learning through withholding of angry responses, it needs to be clear that a person whose heart, mind and emotions are set to "offendable" and "victim" and "revenge" cannot truly even postgive someone, nevertheless forgive them. If a person becomes offended in some circumstance, they were not in possession of and able to give pure and unconditional love; for, if they were, they could not have been offended because love is wholly and unconditionally given. True forgiveness IS unconditional love.

One cannot share love as forgiveness until they pay attention to the light long enough to embrace it for themselves. Only then can they share it with others, through the understanding found in the light. To love someone is to forgive them by ceasing to judge them by your old views. This ultimately requires paying attention, knowing them as they truly are and treating them accordingly.

It is good to note that forgiving someone is not merely letting go of offenses in the sense of ill will. It is also letting go of their overtures of "caring acts" they have done, believing these were love (they were not). Following are two examples of these types of judging and failing to forgive:

1.a. You discover that someone you believed was your friend told your boss you were a real jerk and not all that honest. You are deeply offended, confront that person and cut off the friendship.

1.b. You discover that someone you believed was your friend told your boss you were a real jerk and not all that honest. Through love, you see your friend as a person literally made of love-light substance and, therefore, someone with whom you, being filled with the same substance, can share wholly.

2.a. You discover that someone you thought disliked you admitted freely to your boss that you really were a good supervisor that always watched out for fellow workers as well as the company's interests, and that this had played a role in you receiving your long-awaited promotion.  You feel really good about that person and appreciate their honesty shown in spite of ill feelings, and you take a special moment to tell them how much you appreciate them, proferring friendship to them even though you had never really liked them.

2.b. You discover that someone you thought disliked you admitted freely to your boss that you really were a good supervisor that always watched out for fellow workers as well as the company's interests, and that this had played a role in you receiving your long-awaited promotion. Through love, you see your friend as a person literally made of love-light substance and, therefore, someone with whom you, being filled with the same substance, can share wholly.

Through judging according to the old view, people are evaluated according to how their behavior or other features of "appearance" make you feel and according to rules of conduct in your belief system previously agreed upon for the same reasons.

Through true judgment, or the understanding the light of love shows within, people are evaluated unconditionally because they are seen to be all of the same body (of love-light substance) as yourself. In the light, there is never cause to condemn another and, likewise, there is no cause to raise another above yourself or anyone else. Acting according to true judgment of understanding seen clearly in the light is forgiveness. Forgiveness IS unconditional love.