The essential ingredient in the art of forgiveness is the willingness to forgive. If you sincerely desire to forgive the other, you are more than halfway over the hurdle. Of course you understand that to forgive another does not necessarily mean that you like him or want to associate with him or her. You cannot be compelled to like someone. That would be as if the government tried to legislate goodwill, love, peace, or tolerance. You are not going to like a person simply because someone orders you to do so. However-and this is a crucial point-we can love people without liking them.
The Bible says, Love ye one another. Impossible as this may sound at first, anyone can do it who really wants to do it. Love means that you wish for the other health, happiness, peace, joy, and all the blessing of life. There is only one prerequisite, and that is sincerity. You are not being magnanimous when you forgive, you are really being selfish, because what you wish for the other, you are actually wishing for yourself. The reason is that you are thinking it and you are felling it. As you think and feel, so are you. Could anything be simpler than that?
Compare forgiveness with terror of fire under the question of “intelligent behavior”. To be a Christ child is to be evolving positive energy. To be a Mohammad child is to be evolving negative energy. Thus religions deal with two qualities, the Lord of brain positive and the Lord of brain negative.