Beauty of Forgiveness

Any miserly act or one who gives an unholy gift attains a joyless world, determined by the law of karma. The motive, intention, attitude we carry behind the action determine whether an action is good or bad. Action, per se, is neither good nor bad. While doing charity, if the interest of the receiver is not kept in mind, to that extent, one is selfish. The effect of such selfish action is that one goes through pain and agony, be it physical or emotional, which is the papa or joyless world. The amount of suffering is directly related to your selfishness and attachment. The pain can come from within your family, strangers, or a vicious act by others.

On the other hand, actions performed with a spirit of sacrifice give tremendous joy and satisfaction. We must be able to go through pain and discomfort to bring about a transformation in the other person. This is punya. You can analyse to what extent you can forgive the incompetence, ignorance and shortcomings of the other. It is to keep the recipient in mind.

Q: When does the quality of forgiveness come to the forefront?

A: Forgiveness is also an act of giving. If I do not forgive, I suffer. When we are attached to somebody, and they do harm to us, we undergo suffering in pain and agony. So, practice the quality of forgiveness. You must understand that the other person is expressing their vasanas. When we become the victim, there is a feeling of animosity, vengeance, anger, or hatred. Due to selfishness, we get these emotions. To counter these emotions, we have to be unselfish, which is to forgive. Not to forgive is selfish as we think of our own self and not others’ view. When I become a victim of another person’s action, it allows me to forgive the other person.

The famous quote by John Milton says ‘they also serve who stand and wait’. They may not actually get an opportunity to serve, by their inability is justified by the intention to serve.

Q: How do we forgive the other when somebody is deliberately harming us?

One of the aspects of forgiving is not to hold it in the heart. If you personalise it and not able to let it go out of your mind, you are constantly pricking the wound and not allowing the wound to heal. The sooner you let go of what others do to you, the sooner it helps your wound to heal.

When we say you should forgive, that does not mean allowing yourself to be a victim of others’ actions. You understand it’s their swabhava or vasana. The moment you understand their nature, you should be able to relate to them and not continue to be a victim of their actions. One should learn to get out of a relationship if it is poisonous. Eg: Having a pet snake that stings every day. It is not proper to take antivenom and complain about it because it is a pet. It is better to keep away from the pet.

To take the forgiveness to a higher level, one should ask ‘whom am I to forgive you’. When I say ‘I forgive you’, there is an element of subtle ego or superiority. There is nobody forgiving anybody. Real forgiveness is to understand that their vasanas are expressing, and you relate with them in a most mature way. The real forgiveness is to establish a right relationship with the world by understanding its nature.

Therefore, it is of paramount importance that you need to assess and take a clear stock of the nature of the people you deal with in your immediate world. I must establish a harmonious relationship with them. This is the first step of Vedanta to be practised. So, understand their nature, accept it, and relate to it. That equals forgiveness. If we can take care of the immediate society or the world we are living in and find harmony, our life will be predominantly peaceful and joyful.

Q: When we want to let go but the other person does not want to go from us, how do we deal with such a situation?

A: You respect the relationship and maintain distance. Life can go on without the relationship. Do not expect others to let go. Let others hold on to the grudge. Its mental dependency that makes us slaves to everything around us.

One has to be self-sufficient and go on with their goal or sadhana. Find strength in being a loner. The moment you drop someone, they come to you. Attach you lose, detach you gain. The capacity of being with them and yet be self-sufficient is the real test of detachment in any relationship.

When you do something wrong, as per the law of karma, you will suffer for it. Forgiveness is for ourself and not the other person. That person will face the karma for his actions. The highest Vedanta to practice is, I have got nothing to do with you.

In Mantra 3, we learnt that the father gave away the cows, which were of no use to the brahmanas. In this 4^th mantra, Nachiketa asks his father ‘to whom will you give me’. He is concerned by the attitude of his father to save him from the joyless world. To protect the father, he says you can replace me with the cows as dakshina. So, with a thought of self-sacrifice, he approached the father to sacrifice him. He said that three times. Father gets angry and said ‘unto death I give you’. Nachiketa took that emotional outburst of the father as truth and went to the Lord of death.

In olden days, people respected the word. Vaajashravah, who is the father and also the guru of Nachiketa, gives an order. Nachiketa took the order as a commandment and went to Lord Yama. It is the respect for the guru that he stood by his words.

A guru gives the order for the ultimate good of the individual. It is blasphemous. If I do as per my convenience, it is utter disrespect to the guru.

The words of the Guru who has attained self-realisation will come true at some stage because of their identification with the totality.

Eg: When I switch on my radio in Hyderabad, it may not be that the Hyderabad radio station is broadcasting the song. It could be from national level. Yet the radio is voicing it here.

The radio here is the guru. The guru is broadcasting the knowledge of the truth. It is their selflessness that is talking. Guru’s word is never in vain, can never go wrong.