Rahul Singh
A spiritual person sees the emotions through the scriptures and a not, so spiritual person sees the scriptures through his emotions. A spiritually advanced person’s vision is so big that all the small things like difference of opinion, arguments & all the irrational things that people do become very small & this is because you are living in the bigger picture & therefore the little imperfections of the world don’t affect you in the same way. Their vision of whatever bad is coming to them is that ’I deserve it & maybe even worse ‘. They are able to forgive because they realize that these people are not the real cause of my suffering & that these people are just the messengers of my Karma – when the postman delivers a speeding fine to us, do we run after the postman and confront him with ‘why did you give me a speeding fine’? To realise that others are the ‘messengers of our Karma’ doesn’t mean that 1) that the wrong that other people do is justified 2) that we shouldn’t take practical action to defend ourselves & 3) that we are bad people & therefore deserve it.
The goal of life is not to remember all the terrible things that someone has done to us; the goal of life is to remember all the beautiful things that Krishna is doing for us at every moment. But, unless we give up the bad feeling, the negativity, the bitterness towards others, we will not be able to see the beauty of God’s grace in our lives. Forgiveness doesn’t erase the memories, but it erases the simulations.
Forgiveness is essential because it frees up room in our consciousness and when we don’t forgive three things happen:
- It takes away our energy.
- It takes away our focus & attention.
- It takes away our ability to appreciate life.
So, if we really want to live life, we must learn to forgive.
The Bhagwat Gita gives us three essential insights which could help us to forgive:
- We develop a deeper vision of ourselves: We are spirit souls on a journey through different chapters of life & all our current experiences are connected to previous acts & that we cannot view this chapter of life in isolation. So, when someone sends negativity towards us or when someone does something unreasonable or hurtful, we know there is a higher reason why we are going through this. This helps us to avoid imprisoning ourselves into victim mentality and we begin to think that other people are simply the messengers of our Karma, delivering us lessons that we need to learn – Instead of holding them responsible for my difficulties, I rather take that responsibility myself. When we rise beyond the simplistic notion that the pain of this world is random & indiscriminate, we hold the key to pacifying the heart on the deepest level – every event, experience & emotion provides deep insight into the nature of the world, the self & the deeper purpose of life.
- When we have the humility & honesty to realize that we have also made many mistakes & that we have also fallen prey to the human weakness of anger, greed, pride, envy or harshness, we begin to appreciate that people are weak and fallible. We can’t be judges for other people’s mistakes & lawyers for our own mistakes, because there will be times when we too will make mistakes and we will require the broad mindedness of others to forgive us.
- When we realize that the world is meant to be uncomfortable & frustrating, forgiveness becomes much easier. All the problems & discomfort of this material world, which is like a prison, are meant to remind us that we are not made for this realm. We are ready to forgive because we can appreciate that what we are going through is ultimately an impetus to usher us into the spiritual realm, towards eternal freedom.
Forgiveness empowered by these deep insights, becomes much more possible.
Regardless of what someone has done to you, you deserve to be free because holding onto the pain, the hurt, the anger & the identification as the victim is literally like saying, ‘ okay, you cheated me, you hurt me, you betrayed me; now, I am going to take the most precious thing in this human birth, my freedom, my joy, my bliss & I am going to offer it, today & every day for the rest of my life, on the altar of your ego, your arrogance, your violence, your unskillfulness’. Why in the world would we do that, but that’s what holding on, does & that’s why forgiveness is so important.
We must learn to value freedom more than a good story and most often we value our stories more than our freedom & don’t want to let go of them, because they are such good stories. When we are miserable, when we are addicted, when we don’t trust or when we don’t have the courage, the stories are such great excuses, but the goal of life is not to have a good excuse and at the end of the day, on our death bed, nobody says ‘thank god, at least I had a good excuse’.
The deepest spiritualists have the deepest sense of forgiveness. Forgiveness is what most people are struggling with. Most of us are waking around the world with a heavy burden on our shoulders because we are remembering all these things that happened to us & it is blocking us from experiencing the beauty of life in the here & now.
‘People are often unreasonable & self-centred; forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of an ulterior motive; be kind anyway.
If you are honest, people may cheat you; be honest anyway.
If you find happiness, people may be jealous; be happy anyway.
The good you do today, maybe forgotten tomorrow, do good anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you & God; it was never between you & them anyway.’
We must learn to forgive, not because they deserve it, but because we deserve freedom.
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Rahul Singh is a working professional with over 35 years of experience who began his dedicated spiritual journey just a few years ago. He found profound inspiration in the Bhagavad Gita, drawn to its immense practicality and seamless applicability to modern daily life. Much of Rahul’s perspective and writing is deeply informed by the teachings, books, and talks of Keshav Swami and Swami Sarvapriyananda, to whom he owes a debt of gratitude for providing immense clarity. Through his articles, Rahul hopes to pass that clarity forward, reaching out to fellow seekers who are actively searching for deeper meaning in life.
