Need of Forgiveness in Society and Brahma Kumaris Perspective
(Hardeep Singh, Professor, PG Department of Hindi, SCD Govt College, Ludhiana)
India has seen many riots which stir the whole nation and shows collective lack of tolerance and forgiveness. Especially pogrom of thousands of Sikhs in 1984, killings in Gurat riots in 2002 and Muzaffarnagar riots in 2013 are horrendous examples of lack of tolerance, and forgiveness which leads to poison of hate in the minds of different communities. statements of the Delhi Chief Minister and the Congress vice-president have both brought focus back on the anti-Sikh violence in New Delhi and other places (The Tribune, Jan 30,2014). Unfortunately, those guilty of mass killings are seldom brought to justice in India. Is it the case that the only lesson we learn from history is that we do not learn any lesson? It is much deeper than that. There is collective political amnesia regarding the victims of large-scale violence. Various factors like caste, creed and religion come into defining the ‘other’, which is targeted and brutalised. (Hindustan Times, Jan 31, 2014). In the Gurat genocide Javed Anand (2002) writes,
“On 27 February 2002, the Ahmedabad-bound Sabarmati Express train reached Godhra Station. It stopped for 25 minutes instead of the scheduled 5 minutes and then moved out of the platform. Before it could gather its normal speed, the alarm chain was pulled to stop the train at Signal Falia, a Muslim inhabited locality, which was less than 1 kilometer from the station. After about 20 minutes, compartment S-6 was on fire in which 58 passengers including 26 women and 12 children were burnt to death. Among those passengers were the kar sevaks coming from Ayodhya after Maha Yagna.”
Now the question is how the harmony could have been maintained? Besides, the need to end the quest for justice by bringing the guilty to book as soon as possible. Role of forgiveness is very important. When you forgive, you in no way change the past but you sure do change the future.
By justice, researchers typically mean punishment of the offender for the hurtful action, or what some call ‘‘retributive justice,’’ either by the criminal justice system or by the victim (i.e., revenge; Braithwaite, 1999; Johnstone, 2002; Kidder, 2007; Waldron Kelley, 2007). An apology by the transgressor can fulfill the victim’s desire for justice in part because it communicates responsibility for the action and punishes the offender (Goffman, 1971; Schmitt, Gollwitzer, Forster, Montada, 2004; Tavuchis, 1991). Much research has demonstrated a positive relationship between apology and forgiveness (i.e., Girard et al., 2002; McCullough et al., 1997). The desire to receive an apology (and thus, feel as if justice has been satisfied) lies at the heart of ‘‘conditional forgiveness’’ (Kelley, 1998; Waldron Kelley, 2005; Zechmeister et al., 2004). As Zechmeister et al. wrote,
‘‘Although theological and philosophical conceptualizations may emphasize the ideal of unconditional forgiveness, the everyday human practice of forgiveness may require that offenders satisfy specific conditions such as apology and making amends’’ (p. 556). Thus, because individualistic forgiveness may require or wait on justice in the form of an apology or punishment, it may take longer because it depends on the receipt of an apology from the offender to fulfil the justice precondition.
Forgiveness scholars have gone to great lengths to argue that forgiveness does not mean condoning, pardoning, or excusing an offense, each of which may entail a potential ‘‘denial of justice’’ for a victim (Enright, Eastin, Golden, Sarinopoulos, Freedman, 1992; Enright, Gassin, Wu, 1992; McCullough, 2001; Waldron Kelley, 2007; Worthington, 1997). In fact, Enright, Eastin, et al. (1992) argued that forgiveness is possible only when people have an idea of justice. In other words, justice appears to be as, if not more important, than forgiveness.
Conflicts, particularly those over relationship issues, have the potential to be quite destructive (Grovier, 2002; Kellett Dalton, 2001; Littlejohn Domenici, 2001). Governments and organizations have established a variety of mechanisms, including the criminal justice system and dispute resolution systems, to address issues arising from these conflicts (Gregory 2012). Although these approaches can be effective at surfacing the tangible, ‘‘fixable’’ problem(s) at hand, they often marginalize important relational and emotional elements of conflicts (Kidder, 2007; Worthington Scherer, 2004). Such marginalization diminishes attention paid by the disputants to the personal dimensions of hurts that can fuel conflicts and make them resistant to positive intervention (Grovier, 2002). People can manage personal hurts in a number of ways, including by exacting revenge or by forgiving the individual perceived to be at fault (Tripp, Bies, Aquino, 2007). Revenge, or the ‘‘attempt to redress an interpersonal offense by voluntarily committing an aggressive action against the perceived offender,’’ generally has a bad reputation in the West (McCullough, Bellah, Kilpatrick, Johnson, 2001, p. 602). Despite its tangible and intangible benefits (S. Jacoby, 1983; McCullough et al., 2001; Murphy, 2000), revenge seems to have a reputation as an irrational= emotional disease that causes harm to both the avenger and the avenged (McCullough, 2008). Often cast as the dualistic opposite of revenge, advocates cast forgiveness as the ‘‘better’’ response alternative in part because of its relational benefits (Kelley, 1998; Kelley Waldron, 2005; McCullough et al., 1998; Waldron Kelley, 2007), physiological benefits (Berry Worthington, 2001), and affective benefits (Witvliet, Ludwig, Bauer, 2002). Essentially, forgiveness is a prosocial, constructive approach to managing the negative relational and emotional consequences of conflict (Hope 1987; Waldron Kelley, 2007).
On occasion, national events, including religious holidays (such as Yom Kippur and Easter) and tragedies (such as the murders of five Amish school children), thrust forgiveness (and revenge) into the media spotlight, generating discussions of what forgiveness is, why we should (not) forgive, and how we should go about forgiving. On these points, however, there seems to be important variation both among researchers, as well as between researchers and the public at large ( Gregory, 2012 ). As Fincham (2000) noted, ‘‘Our lay expertise [on forgiveness] often allows us to communicate about forgiveness without being aware that we may have different referents for the term or even an unclear referent’’ (p. 6). These definitional differences, in turn, can have important implications on research into forgiveness, as well as the enactment of forgiveness (Aquino, Grover, Goldman, Folger, 2003; Waldron Kelley, 2007).
Noting these differences, Waldron and Kelley (2007) argued that forgiveness is best understood as a social construction grounded in context. They argued that ‘‘[L]ike those offered for love and friendship, forgiveness definitions are shaped by the purposes and perspectives of those using the term’’ (p. 11). People negotiate and (re)construct their ideas of forgiveness in particular contexts as they talk with each other and read texts on forgiveness from other contexts. A social constructivist approach, then, questions the idea of a singular notion of ‘‘forgiveness,’’ instead approaching it as a localized, negotiated behaviour shaped by a variety of intrapersonal, interpersonal, and larger social influences.
To date, however, there has been limited investigation into factors shaping how people define forgiveness. Rather, the majority of studies on forgiveness have concentrated on identifying situation-specific variables such as relationship closeness and transgression severity—what Phatak and Habib (1996) termed the ‘‘immediate context’’— that influence the likelihood of practicing forgiveness. Few studies, however, have explored the influence of what Phatak and Habib (1996) termed the ‘‘environmental context’’ on the practice of forgiveness. This context includes features such as communal norms and values over which people have little control (see Friedman, 1989). Of these studies (see Gassin, 2001; Sandage, Hill, Vang, 2003; Sandage Wiens, 2001; Sandage Williamson, 2005), most investigations have concentrated on the influence of individualism and collectivism on the likelihood of practicing forgiveness (Gregory, 2012).
The author of this paper seeks to extend the current perceptive of forgiveness by taking a step back to focus on the communicative process of defining forgiveness. Rather than assuming that forgiveness is an internally or personality-driven motivation (Berry Worthington, 2001; McCullough, Bono, Root, 2007; Worthington, 1997), this investigation acknowledges that people are situated in a larger context in which social structures encourage some behaviours and discourage others. By foregrounding these social structures, in particular discourse, this paper also opens the door for understanding how people define and enact forgiveness in different contexts. In other words, this paper provides an opening for exploring the nuances in how people define and enact the concept of forgiveness. The author of this paper offers a brief discussion of forgiveness research to date and the way it has managed the issue of context.
Context of Forgiveness
According to Gregory (2012), For the most part, forgiveness research has followed a post-positivist paradigm, focusing on predicting and explaining forgiveness likelihood using quantifiable, situation-specific variables. For example, researchers have examined the relationship between forgiveness likelihood and situational variables such as apologizing (Cupach Metts, 1994; Girard, Mullet, Callahan, 2002; Kelley Waldron, 2005; Zechmeister, Garcia, Romero, Vas, 2004), offense severity (Bradfield Aquino, 1999; Kelley Waldron, 2005, 2006; Zechmeister et al., 2004), and offender likeableness (Bradfield Aquino, 1999). These studies either have assumed a general uniformity in how people define and enact forgiveness across contexts or have defined forgiveness for research participants.
However, as the amount of research has grown, some researchers have begun to explore differences in forgiveness definitions (Kanz, 2002; Lawler-Row, Scott, Raines, Edlis-Matityahou, Moore, 2007; McCullough, 2001; Younger, Piferi, Job, Lawler, 2004). These differences are apparent among both researchers and the public. Worthington (1997), for example, defined forgiveness as ‘‘a motivation to reduce avoidance and withdrawal from a person who hurt us, as well as the anger, desire for revenge, and urge to retaliate against that person’’ (p. 108). This definition exemplifies the neutralist position in that it asserts that forgiveness involves only the elimination of negativity toward an offender (Bright, Fry, Cooperrider, 2006). Kelley and Waldron (2006), however, approached forgiveness differently, defining it as follows:
A relational process whereby harmful conduct is acknowledged by one or both partners; the harmed partner extends undeserved mercy to the perceived transgressor; one or both partners experience a transformation from negative to positive psychological states, and the meaning of the relationship is renegotiated with the possibility of reconciliation. (p. 307)
Their definition represents the positivist position (Bright et al., 2006), arguing that forgiveness involves not only the elimination of negativity, but also the production of positivity toward the offender. Although researchers seem to agree on at least a few characteristics of forgiveness—namely, that it is necessitated by a hurtful event, is both interpersonal and intrapersonal, and is processual—the definitional variance not only has problematized the internal and external validity of such studies but also has led some scholars to question the very method researchers use to study forgiveness (Aquino et al., 2003; Waldron Kelley, 2007). These definitional differences are apparent among the public as well (Kanz, 2000; Lawler-Row et al., 2007; Younger et al., 2004). Much of this variation appears to stem from whether forgiveness involves forgetting an offense or reconciling with the offender (Younger et al., 2004). Kearns and Fincham (2004) also observed that some respondents, contrary to researchers’ assertions (Enright, Gassin, Wu, 1992; Enright the Human Development, 1991; Waldron Kelley, 2007), believed that forgiveness involved condoning an offense. Along with Younger et al. (2004), they also found that people did not believe that forgiveness was necessarily a positive experience. In other words, research to date has observed important differences in how people define the process and practice of forgiveness.
This variation may be due at least partially to the different social norms and values constituting the contexts in which people describe and enact forgiveness (Sandage Williamson, 2005; Waldron Kelley, 2007). Exploration into the influence of contextual features on the practice of forgiveness is only beginning. Of the studies that have explored larger social features, the primary focus has been on the influence of individualism=collectivism and religious beliefs. For example, Sandage and Wiens (2001) argued that members of individualist cultures practice forgiveness differently than people in collectivist cultures, in part by distinguishing between forgiveness and reconciliation. In addition, given the religious foundation of forgiveness (McCullough, 2008; Rye et al., 2001), researchers have investigated the influence of religious affiliation on people’s decision to forgive, observing mixed results (Konstam, Holmes, Levine, 2003; Tsang, McCullough, Hoyt, 2006; Wade Worthington, 2003). Waldron and Kelley’s (2007) Negotiated Morality Theory suggests that the differences in forgiveness likelihood are attributable to underlying
personal and social values. The theory holds that the maintenance of values, which hold varying degrees of importance, motivates the practice of forgiveness. As people work through the process of forgiveness, they negotiate their relationships with one another, as well as the importance of the violated values. In all, the limited research to date on context factors has explored such factors as individualism=collectivism, religious affiliation, and individual values.
Missing from these investigations into forgiveness likelihood is an investigation into how these factors shape what forgiveness means. Several factors, including personal experiences, cultural narratives, and forgiveness texts, influence people’s conceptualizations of what it means to forgive (Waldron Kelley, 2007). Of particular interest in this study is how media texts on forgiveness episodes socially construct the meaning and practice of forgiveness. These texts may come in a variety of forms, including religious texts admonishing people to forgive, movies extolling the virtues of revenge, ‘‘Dear Abby’’ letters recommending the withholding of forgiveness until transgressor makes up for his=her wrongs, and newspaper stories about a battered wife who forgave her abusive husband. Together, these texts constitute a larger discourse of forgiveness, which, in turn, influences how people not only make sense of past actions but also conceptualize the forgiving process going into the future
(Putnam Cooren, 2004). Viewed through a structurational lens (Poole, Seibold, McPhee, 1985), these texts are resources people draw on to (re)construct their ideas about forgiveness (Heracleous, 2006)—that is, texts have constitutive force both in and of themselves, as well as when drawn on by individuals to understand forgiveness. As such, media texts merit investigation because of their role in constituting the construct of forgiveness. A study done by Gregory (2012) indicates the results as
“The open coding process revealed thirty-two conceptual categories overall, only six of which were unique to either the Amish or non-Amish transcript sets. These conceptual categories fit into three second-order categories that highlighted the processual characteristics of forgiveness: groundwork of forgiveness, enactment of forgiveness, and consequences of forgiveness. ‘‘Groundwork of forgiveness’’ refers to immediate and environmental factors (such as norms, predispositions, and hurtful events) that promote or discourage forgiveness. ‘‘Enactment of forgiveness’’ refers to the actual activity of forgiving, or what people do when they forgive. Finally, ‘‘consequences of forgiveness’’ refers to the psychological, relational, physiological, and communal ramifications of engaging in forgiveness.”
Both sets identified several types of transgressions associated with forgiveness. These included murder, accidental shooting, assault (including sexual assault), and theft. Common across each of the transgressions identified in the texts was the psychological pain felt by their victims. One individual interviewed indicated that ‘‘The grief and anger that I experienced after my son was in the accident became all consuming and held me prisoner’’ (Susman, 2006). Another individual indicated that she ‘‘was full of anger and rage and an absolute lusting for revenge for years’’ (Shamlian, 2006). Forgiveness emerged as a potential response, then, not to ‘‘petty’’ actions but rather to ‘‘serious’’ transgressions that caused lasting emotional pain.
Just as collectivistic forgiveness takes a different view of the forgiveness reconciliation relationship; it also seems to approach justice differently. Namely, whereas individualistic forgiveness positioned justice as a central individual concern, collectivistic forgiveness approached justice as a relational issue of equal importance to forgiveness. Specifically, rather than approaching justice as punishment, justice in the collectivist setting involves the restoration of relationships between offenders and victims (i.e., ‘‘restorative justice’’; Braithwaite, 1999; Johnstone, 2002; Umbreit Ritter, 2006). Such an approach to justice situates the relationship rather than the individual as the basic unit of society (Sandage Wiens, 2001). Forgiveness, in turn, becomes part of the larger justice process by which social order is restored. Thus, rather than seeing justice as a precondition, collectivistic forgiveness is part of the process by which victims and offenders restore the ‘‘relational order’’ that was upset by the transgression. Because of the desire to restore damaged relationships, the granting of forgiveness in turn may take less time than with individualistic forgiveness (Younger et al., 2004).
The emergence of these divergent discourses supports previous research (Kanz, 2000; Lawler-Row et al., 2007; Younger et al., 2004) that has identified differing approaches to forgiving. However, rather than locating these differences intra personally, this study suggests that a source of these divergent conceptualizations lies in the very language that constitutes forgiveness discourse. This is not to say that the discourses cause people to forgive one way and not another way. Rather, as people come across texts that address the issue of forgiveness (i.e., ‘‘forgive and forget’’), they can draw on those discourses as they engage in the practice in the future (i.e., ‘‘forgiveness involves forgetting the offense’’). In addition, as people draw on discourses of other subjects (i.e., justice, relationship, apology, etc.), their views of forgiveness may change given the inherent connection of those discourses with that of forgiveness. As such, rather than boiling forgiveness down to a single issue of ‘‘defining forgiveness,’’ this study suggests that the picture is much more complex with regard to defining (or socially constructing) forgiveness in that it involves discourses of relationships, justice, and time to name but a few interrelated constructs.
Brahma Kumaris Perspective : Real Forgiveness
Mike George in his article expressed Brahmakumaris view on forgiveness. There is a huge difference between a hurt body and hurt feelings. Someone or something can cause you physical pain but no one can cause you to suffer emotionally...if you so decide. However, it seems that few us learn to make the clear distinction between physical pain and emotional suffering. As the old saying goes pain is compulsory but suffering is optional. Unless it’s chronic, then physical pain is usually a one time event before it subsides. But emotional suffering tends to linger longer.
Our feelings usually ‘hurt’ following something someone says about us, to us, or behaves badly towards us. And those feelings can last a long time depending on how much we repeat the experience in our own minds. And yet, if we cast our mind back to the school playground we may remember singing, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but names can never hurt me”. We would call each other horrible names and mock each other mercilessly and yet, the next moment, we would play on as if nothing was said. Unfortunately, as we grow up, we tend to become increasingly sensitive to what other people say to us and about us. Suddenly we start taking things personally and we are easily offended. Why? The ego. As we grow we develop our ego, which is essentially an image of ourselves that we create in our minds. We become attached to that image and it becomes our subtle identity. And if people say or do anything that contradicts that image we become offended and create ‘hurt feelings’. We inflict emotional suffering upon our self. The principle therefore sounds something like this: “No one can hurt me, but I can use you (what to say) to hurt my self”.
We are of course talking about our emotions and not our body. When someone hurts your body they don’t hurt you, they hurt your body. You feel the physical pain of course, as the body sends the appropriate signals to the brain. But the hurt feelings i.e. ‘emotional suffering’ is always a choice. We can choose to instantly forget the physical pain and it’s cause if we want, or we can keep remembering it and keep generating anger and/or resentment towards the person who caused the physical pain. It’s a choice, but only if we can see the choice. And it seems many can’t, simply because no one teaches us to be aware of the emotions that we feel. Even fewer of us learn that we are entirely responsible for our emotional state. Realising that we are the creator of our feelings and that we can choose our feelings is one of the most significant steps in re-empowering our self and being the master of our own life.
There are seven frequent occurrences following which we tend to generate emotional suffering. These are when people insult us, gossip about us, ignore us, reject us, betray us, deceive us or let us down. These are the behaviours that may ‘trigger’ our hurt, but they never actually ‘cause’ our hurt feelings. Here is why.
Rejection
We feel rejected when we interpret others attitudes and behaviour towards us as non-accepting. If it happens often enough we will start looking for evidence of rejection almost as soon as we meet someone. The belief that we are ‘rejectable’, that for some reason we are not worthy of others acceptance, has set in. If it pains us emotionally, if we feel hurt by others apparent rejection, it means we are coming to the relationship in a state of neediness. It’s the need to be accepted and approved by the other which underlies any hurt feelings. It’s this neediness that usually sits under any insecurity that we may feel in any relationship. If we can free ourselves from needing to get the acceptance and approval of others we would probably never ‘decide’ to feel hurt by their behaviour towards us even if it was overtly rejecting. Not so easy in a world where most of us are taught to build our sense of self on how others see us and act towards us.
Being Ignored
Sometimes it seems there is nothing worse than being ignored by another. Even worse if its by a group of ‘others’! At least in rejection there is some engagement, some acknowledgment of our presence and existence! Can we live without the acknowledgement of another? Can we survive being ignored? Well we usually do. But it’s emotionally painful because we are dependent on others acknowledgement to give us the feeling that we exist and that we are of value. Perhaps the only way free of yet another form of neediness is to affirm our own existence and to find ways to make our self of value to others. Being of value to others is the context in which we grow our awareness of our own value, our own worth. And when we ‘know’ our value, which is also one of the deepest foundations of self-confidence, our neediness dissolves. Then, if someone ignores us, it’s OK! Besides who knows why ‘they’ do what they do, it’s their choice!
Dejection
It’s hard to overcome the feeling of hurtfulness when you know someone has lied to you, when you know you’ve been been ‘had’, you’ve been deceived. We expect others, especially those close to us, to be honest and open and well...straight! So we are not only surprised when there is deception, we take it personally, and start to feel hurt by the other. Sometimes it’s a hurt that we will hold on to for many years. But it’s not the others deviousness that hurts us, it’s our expectation of them. It’s a our sense of our self as someone who is worthy of ‘their’ best behaviour that is the underlying cause of our feeling offended. We then upset our self when they behave in the ways that we don’t expect, in ways that do not acknowledge and affirm that image we have of our self i.e. as someone deserving of the honesty and openness of others.
The only way free of our hurt is to seek to understand them. When we find out why they seem to have deceived us we usually find it’s nothing to do ‘with me’ and more to do with a flaw in their character, a fear of revealing something, an avoidance of being exposed, a strategy to hide something from us. We will likely find they are, in some way, fear full! Only our understanding of the other can give us the internal impetus to transform our hurt and condemnation into understanding and compassion.
Ultimately the deepest way free of hurt in almost all such instances is to drop our expectations of the other. But if that’s a bridge too far then perhaps, to begin with, we can separate our happiness from having our expectations met.
Spreading gossip
We live in the age of the gossip. The media has spawned it’s many social offspring. Social media gives us access to others peoples lives and an opportunity to interpret, comment and tell stories about other peoples activities. It gives us the power to build a reputation and project that reputation to hundreds of thousands of people almost instantly. That’s when we become ‘reputation dependent’! We want others to see and think of us in a certain way, usually as a good person (minimum) and perhaps also as a great person (maximum!) if not a beautiful person! We then become dependent on others affirmation of our goodness, acknowledgement of our beauty, if not our greatness! We want to be recognised and we become dependent on others for how we see our self and feel about our self. It’s no surprise we become super sensitive to what others are saying about us. And it’s even less of a surprise when we become easily hurt by the slightest slur on our character. Sometimes simply the absence of admiration is enough to tip us into feeling ever so slightly...hurt!
Sometimes we encounter someone who has no concern for what others think of them. Yet they are still warm and sensitive people to be with. We may say they have a thick skin. Deep down however we probably appreciate, respect and even admire their ability to stay unfazed by the judgments, stories and even slander that others may spread about them. They seem free on the inside. They are not dependent on others for how they see and feel about themselves.
Letting Down
“You let me down. I’m so disappointed in you”. Both statements are code for ‘you made me suffer’! It’s one of the most prevalent illusions of modern society. These exchanges usually start somewhere in childhood in the relationship between parent and child. In those moments we learn that we are responsible for others feelings and therefore others are responsible for our feelings. They are fatal lessons. They will guarantee a lifetime of unhappiness born of a dependency on others for what we feel within our self. The only way free is to realise that no one is responsible for what we feel, no one ever lets us down. We let our self down. And ‘down’ usually means we bring our self ‘down’ from a happy or contend state to a sad or agitated state...even when ‘they’ are just five minutes late! Sometimes it’s the smallest thing that seems to trigger our ‘down’. Imagine a life where, regardless of what others do or what anyone else says, you cannot be ‘let down’. Can you smell the freedom, the stability, the contentment within your self and at the same time the consistent ability to ‘be there’ for others regardless of what they do, of how ‘late’ or ‘remiss’ they may be. Is that not what we sometimes call unconditional love?
Insult
“I was so offended when they said that to me. It was such an insult when they said that to you. I am not only going to be personally offended but I’m also going to be offended on your behalf!” Well perhaps we don’t say exactly that but we do become indignant and create the feeling of being insulted even when others are insulted and it wasn’t directed at us. It’s as if we identify with their suffering and join in, ensuring that we suffer with them. Some people will remember an insult for the rest of their lives and not realise the memory is as good as the best prison cell! They lock themselves up in the memory of the images and feelings of their moment of emotional pain. Then, perhaps one day, they may see that it wasn’t them that was insulted it was just an image of themselves that was in contradiction to what was said. They may realise that the ‘self’, the ‘I’ that says ‘I am’, has no image. The self creates images in the mind but has no image of itself! This takes us into the spiritual territory which is why it’s perhaps the deepest freedom a human being can ‘realise’. And when we do live from this free, inner space, it just doesn’t matter what anyone says to us, it will have no effect. And we certainly won’t be saying, “You just hurt my feelings’.
Betray
“But you promised. You promised you wouldn’t say anything. You said you wouldn’t tell!”. We all view the breaking of a promise as a betrayal. The worst seems to be the transfer of a ‘promised exclusive intimacy’ from one to another. Otherwise known as an affair! The hurt feelings go deep and often turn out to be expensive! What started out as love can end as hate filled resentment and the emotional wounds may last a lifetime. But wait a minute! Why all the weeping and wailing? Why the indescribable emotional pain and everlasting misery? Could it just be expectation again? Could it just be dependency on another to bolster our own ego...again?
Could it be that we didn’t realise that trusting another and then expecting that trust to be be upheld, fulfilled, respected, was just our mistake? Who knows what makes someone betray a trust. There could be a thousand reasons ranging from their fears to their weaknesses. But as long as we ‘expect’, as long as we ‘depend’, as long as we ‘believe’ the other will never betray us, then we can also pretty much guarantee that one day we are going to feel hurt, let down, devastated, for a few moments or for a very long time. Unless! Unless we realise the emotional hurt is our responsibility. Unless we realise we have a choice. Not an easy choice to see in such moments for sure. But we don’t have to suffer. People break promises. That’s a reality on planet earth!
Paradoxically, or perhaps weirdly, in the middle of of such suffering we may even have the thought, “What did I do to make them betray me?”, as we turn the emotional gun on our self. Crazy! So crazy it’s almost pure comedy! But it doesn’t feel like it at the time.
And so... the result of understanding what’s really going on during and after all these reasons to be hurt is seeing that it’s not ‘them’ that is hurting my feelings, it’s me that is generating the emotional suffering, usually a mix of sadness and anger. That’s why, at an emotional level, forgiving the other is slightly irrelevant. It only affirms our self image as a victim. And that’s the best invitation for it to happen again. There is in fact a deeper level of forgiveness that can release us from all such moments of emotional pain.
All of these scenarios have one thing in common. There is one reason why we are hurting our self emotionally in each of these seven examples. It’s dependence. It’s the moment when we think, “I am not getting what I WANT or they are not doing what I WANT or they are not being the way I WANT!”
In such moments we are really saying, “My life is ‘for getting’ what I WANT. I am alive, I am here, in order to GET something”. But that’s not quite the purpose of life, it’s not quite how life is designed to be lived, so the sages and the saints have reminded us for eons. We don’t come here to GET something we come here to GIVE. To GIVE of our self. As soon as we realise, “My life is FOR GIVING,” we discover the true meaning of forgiveness...for giving! And as soon as we stop depending and expecting, which are just ‘wanting’ in disguise, it will be impossible for us to ever be emotionally hurt. And if you don’t ever get hurt emotionally then the idea of forgiveness is irrelevant.
So, when someone stands on our foot on the train there is a moment of truth, a moment when we are being tested. Will we forgive and forget their clumsiness (or our misplaced foot!) and get on with our life. Or will we fume with an indignant anger for the rest of our journey?
Conclusion
Rejection, dejection, being ignored, spreading gossip, insult, or letting down are different causes of hurt. Forgiveness can heal feeling of any kind of hurt, it doesn’t matter how deeply hurt one is. At the individual level and at social level forgiveness works like a miracle in smoothening the relationships and bring balance in the society. But to forgive one needs power and source of this power is spirituality. Spirituality means giving and giving only and not to expect anything from others in return. Because whatever one gives bet the same return. It is the law of karma. If one can’t forgive then he will get only opposite of forgive, that is revenge. Revenge means draining the peace of mind and world peace. So everyone in this world needs to empower with forgiveness. Forgiveness is not a weakness but a strength. This will make the peace a reality.
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