The Force of Forgiveness

I wanted to write about the subject of 'forgiveness' today and then I thought, I must have written about this before. True enough a search of my blog yields this article on the Art of Forgetting.  Though the article was more about forgetting, it is closely related to the subject of forgiveness. Today I will focus more on forgiveness itself.

Myra was texting me last night asking me why is it that her mother is always causing her so much pain. She didn't tell me about the specifics but I can understand the kind of difficulties that can arise in the relationship with one's parents. She was jokingly saying that she must have done something bad in her past life to deserve such a mum.

I laughed and told her that we all get what we 'deserve'. She has the mother that she has because she is exactly what she needs to perfect herself.  And what is it that she is supposed to learn from her mum? I told her that she is there for her to learn forgiveness. Surprisingly she understood perfectly and it seemed to comfort her a little.

Why do we get hurt? It's because we have 'sharp edges' that rub against others. Whenever we feel hurt, ask ourselves, what is it within us that's causing this pain?  Most of the time, it is our pride and ego. Or perhaps it's our relationship with money or other attachments that we are unwilling to let go of.

Pain points to our imperfections. Forget about what other people should or should not be doing. Like an athlete, we need to train ourselves so that we are fit to meet the challenges of the terrain that we are encountering. If we are not running correctly, with the right type of shoes, we could get injured.  

Sartre famously wrote: "Hell is other people". The line came from his play where 3 people arrived in hell only to find that they are supposed to spend the rest of their time in eternity with each other in a plain ordinary room. That could be a worse prospect than eternal hellfire.

Other people is the terrain that we have to deal with on a daily basis. If we do not know how to navigate through it, we'll get hurt.  Having the right strength, nimbleness and flexibility could save us from further injuries. 

Forgiveness is one of those skills that we need to acquire to protect ourselves from permanent injuries. Whenever we get hurt,  we try to understand why it hurts so much. And then we adjust our response to ensure that we don't get injured again in the future. To forgive someone means we are not reacting rashly in response. It doesn't mean that we are passive either.  It actually requires use to perform the right action and to train ourselves to know how to avoid similar situations in the future. 

To forgive someone is to depersonalize a pain and take the experience simply as an obstacle in the terrain that we did not navigate through wisely. We don't curse the terrain or kick the rock that tripped us. We just learn to deal with it better. There's nothing personal about a difficult path that we have to run through.  

It may be that other people are purpose doing certain things to hurt you. But they are also dealing unwisely with the terrain that they are encountering. Let them learn their lessons their way, in the right time. Your job is to run your own marathon.

By forgiving, you are acknowledging the lesson that is to be learned from the experience and allowing yourself to start afresh. The karma is resolved, without any tricky residue. It's always good to restart again after a fall without any distracting grudges or thoughts of revenge. 

What matters most is how you move on. You could be more bitter but certainly wiser.  Even bitterness is like temporary muscle sore that fades away. You end up stronger and more adapted to the terrain. Never under-estimate that powerful force called forgiveness.