Bert Hellinger – Recommends Not Asking for Forgiveness

For some time I prayed for the forgiveness of a certain person. I visualized her and said, “I forgive you…” and, to complete it, “I ask for your forgiveness.” Many years passed, and unexpectedly her Soul stood before me. She said, “Please forgive me.” Through clenched teeth I managed to say, “I forgive you.”

HELLINGER: to Laura
“I interrupted you when you said: ‘Forgive me, please!’ That is not good. One must not ask for forgiveness. A person has no right to forgive. No human being has the right to forgive. When someone asks me for forgiveness, they shift the responsibility for their guilt onto me. The same thing happens when someone goes to confession. Then they transfer the consequences of their behavior onto another person. Some people confess to a psychotherapist. If the therapist allows it, he takes their guilt upon himself and then has to carry it. He can protect himself by saying: ‘I do not want to know.’ The one who forgives is always in the higher position. This makes an equal relationship impossible. If you say: ‘I am sorry,’ you remain a partner. Then you preserve your dignity, and the other person can more easily come toward you.”

Laura:
“I felt that. A tremendous difference. That was what needed to be said.”

Hellinger:
“The pain and sorrow that you feel honor your husband, and that is enough.”
(Page 162 of Orders of Love)

I consider Family Constellation Therapy a wonderful tool for exploring the karma of the Soul, the Soul itself, and its entanglements. I respect Bert Hellinger’s opinions to a lesser degree because, in my view, they lack heart and love.

Together with my Soul, I expected from that Soul (that personality) a simple “I am sorry,” but she had not yet risen to such heights. Instead, in her usual way, she shifted all the blame, all the work, and all the responsibility onto me, so that I would become even more spiritual and forgive, without any effort on her part. As if the pain that came from her were somehow my obligation.

There was no heart in her request, no reflection upon herself. I am capable of overcoming myself and forgiving—in the end, I have been striving for exactly that—but she herself may not succeed. It is not possible to avoid responsibility for one’s own words and actions, even when they are influenced by astral beings.

Someday, at some point, fulfillment will come, and with it emotion and deep feeling—made all the greater by however long the delay may have been.

I read once again the sentence:

“A person has no right to forgive. No human being has the right to forgive.”

Hellinger placed himself above Jesus and His heartfelt words: “I have forgiven you.”

In practice, however, it is better to forgive everyone. After all, with a single sentence mutual obligations are dissolved—at least in one direction.

Opublikowano: 22/06/2026
Autor: Sławomir Majda
Kateogrie: Heart Energy and Love.

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