If you’ve ever truly forgiven somebody, you’ve taken the same non-journey: The end of forgiveness, at least in my experience, is discovering that there was never anything to forgive.

At the same time, the journey to get to that point where it’s possible for you to step into that place of forgiveness is legitimate and can feel long, arduous, and at times impossible. That’s why it’s helpful to know at the outset where it ends.

The first cornerstone set into the ground precisely determines the exact placement of a whole structure that’s about to be built. That’s why setting the cornerstone for a large or important building is often accompanied by a big ceremony. The ribbon-cutting ceremony, signifying the completion of the building, comes later.

But here’s the thing. If you’ve ever had any type of satori experience, giving you a deeply-felt certainty of love as the primary universal force, that was the cornerstone ceremony. In a sense, it’s all determined from here. You and I will never be satisfied believing that we are less than what we are, which, by the way, is what we were seeking all along.

As you approach the end of this book, you may be feeling a few mixed emotions, among them disappointment. If that’s the case – be honest! – consider that unconsciously you may have been anticipating that this book was going to give you the answer you needed to hear. And, perhaps, here again you feel let down.

Let me help you out here: The only book ever written that has the answer at the end was the third book in Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide series, Life, the Universe, and Everything where the answer to the Universe was, famously, revealed to be 42.

Try to identify any disappointment you might feel as a tiny displacement of the you that you’re seeking onto an external source. And if you’ve enjoyed the book, that’s fine, too. Feel free to start it over from the beginning.

Speaking of which, that's where you are now: the beginning.