Forfeit and Sacrifice

The difference between the words forfeit and sacrifice is telling and instructive:

Sacrifice

Forfeit

With sacrifice, we may purchase, or offer to purchase, the desired end; with forfeit, we get only the appearance of gain.

The words can be used as nouns or verbs. Here are the respective definitions of the verbs from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, Second Edition:

forfeit v.t.,...

to lose, give up, or be deprived of by some fault, offense, or crime; to lose or alienate the right to possess, by some neglect, crime, etc. ...

sacrifice v. t.,...

to offer to a god or deity in homage or propitiation.
to give up, destroy, permit injury to, or forego (a valued thing) for the sake of something of greater value or having a more pressing claim.

In general, wrong work is a forfeit of the right to possess consciousness, and the sacrifice of wrong work is done for the purpose of acquiring consciousness.

For example, a forfeit, daydreaming, gives us the illusion but deprives us of the reality of that which is imagined, while the sacrifice of daydreaming allows for the possibility of the real. In particular, the sacrifice of daydreaming makes it possible to see that we do not possess what we imagine, thus making possible the actual acquisition of what was formerly only imagined.

For another example, we might take our ordinary emotional state and higher emotions. Our ordinary emotional state is characterized by identification and negative emotion and uses what little emotional energy we have. To gain higher emotions, we must sacrifice our current emotions, sacrifice our negativity and identification. That sacrifice saves the energy normally expended and makes room for the higher emotional center to appear, and, in the ensuing quiet, for it to be heard.

Let's take the definitions singly:

forfeit v.t.,...: to lose, give up, or be deprived of by some fault, offense, or crime; to lose or alienate the right to possess, by some neglect, crime, etc. ...

We "lose, give up" not by "offense or crime" but by "fault", or more exactly, neglect. We forfeit consciousness by neglecting to work for it; that is, we forget. We forget to remember ourselves, to struggle with imagination and negative emotions, to struggle with inner-considering and unnecessary muscular tensions. We neglect our aims, our desired course—at least that course we desire when we think most sincerely about what we want. The neglect, the forgetting, of our own aims, keeps us from being able to make the strategic sacrifices necessary to attain them.

If we were to substitute the word "forfeit" for the word "sin" in New Testament writings, we would get a much better picture of what is being said. The word translated as sin, as Maurice Nicoll has pointed out, is actually an archery term meaning having missed the mark, missed the target that one was aiming for. This does not have the judgmental connotation of sin, and more exactly indicates our loss of something we want or are trying for, not something that others tell us we should want.

The definition of sacrifice is even more pregnant with meaning:

sacrifice v. t.,...

to offer to a god or deity in homage or propitiation.
to give up, destroy, permit injury to, or forego (a valued thing) for the sake of something of greater value or having a more pressing claim.

The first definition speaks of sacrifice in the religious sense—sacrifice to a god or deity. We may view higher consciousness that way. When we understand what consciousness is, and have a better understanding of what esoteric religion teaches, there is no difficulty in understanding that the inner idea of sacrifice is expressed exoterically in the sacrifice of, say, the sheep valued by the shepherd. We must sacrifice something of value to get something of greater value. Without a difficult "willing", there is no sacrifice.

The second definition of sacrifice, though, is even more interesting, more exact. We must give up our imagination, our inner-considering, and so on. We must destroy our illusions about who we are, what our value is. We must be able to permit injury to our idea of ourselves. We must forego our valued illusions about ourself, for the sake of acquiring something greater—a real objective picture of who and what we are.

We make the sacrifice of our illusions simply by seeing them for what they are. Simple, but difficult. It requires sustained attention without identification. That is the effort, the willing, required of us.

Rather than forfeiting our life in an illusion of attainment, let us work to sacrifice our illusions for a real gain in consciousness.

Forfeit is effortless. Sacrifice is work. Forfeit is easy, automatic, mechanical, it is our habit of taking the path of least resistance. Sacrifice requires that we stop to think, take a different course than we would normally take, even if only for the sake of doing just that.

Internal and External Considering

A good example of the difference between forfeit and sacrifice may be seen in the difference between internal and external considering. Internal (or "inner") considering, which occurs to us in spite of ourselves, is based on our false idea of ourselves. In one type of inner considering we expect others to values us more—to not cut us off in traffic, to not make us wait for them, and so forth. In another type of inner considering, we worry that another thinks ill of us, or that they do not understand what we really mean, and so on. We not only forfeit the possibility of responding to the situation in any real way, but we lose the necessary energy to do so because of our habitual reaction of inner-considering.

External considering has a different effect. First, we must refrain from inner-considering or any other mechanical reaction if we are going to externally consider. We must be aware of, and to some extent able to control, what is happening within us. Second, we must deliberately consider the other person or the situation we are in; consider, for example, whether they might not have acted with the intent to affront us. Consider whether they might, in fact, have been quite unaware of their actions. Consider what really matters to us anyway, we who are trying to struggle with imagination, with inner-considering, with negative emotions. Consider that we are in fact reminded of this now thanks to this situation. Consider whether reprimanding them or feeling sorry for ourselves could really help the situation in any way, or if in fact we might be able instead to say or do something that can relieve tensions, put the situation in a realistic perspective or comic light, and so on. Act in such a way as to help the other. Invisibly, or we'll just feed the worst parts of ourself in the process.

The sacrifice of inner-considering can result in a multitude of creative and energy-saving situations. Externally considering another person can unveil to us a new understanding of that person and others, and can help us chip away some of the awful baggage of selfishness and misunderstanding that we carry. Internal considering is a forfeit of our freedom to act, our freedom to choose, so we are left with the habitual, mechanical reactions that we are seeking to be rid of. External considering is a sacrifice of our habitual, comfortable sleep, requiring sustained effort and experiment, but opening us to new possibilities in our life. Opening us to new possibilities.