The level of consciousness from which you act and think is all-important.  “What?” You ask.  “There are different levels and I get to choose?”  Yes, you do so quite frequently, sliding up and down the scale, acting from avarice or altruism, selfishness or selflessness.  Your motive and Self-awareness are all-important.  If you forgive a person their trespasses without coming from the heart, which is always a higher level (from the heart), then your actions do not carry the same healing energy, most especially for you, the giver of forgiveness.  When you realize that giver and receiver are one and the same at a higher level, and that in forgiving another you are gifting the Self, then you have acted from the highest level possible.  Think “state of awareness” and rise.