​Is it healthy to feel distressed whenever we remember how we have hurt others in the past?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, question is if we have if I have hurt someone long time ago and that the fact that I spoke very harshly that hurts me now. So, what can we do? There is there are two different things. There is learning from the past and there is lamenting about the past.
Now, lamenting about the past actually does not do anything constructive. Now, we all have committed mistakes in our lives and if we just lament oh why did I do that, why did I do that, why did I do that, then that simply dissipates our energy and that is just another trick of the mind. How is it another trick of the mind? Because in the present I can do something constructive but if I keep thinking about the negative thing that I did in the past, I can’t focus on doing something constructive right now.
So, lamenting means we are just thinking about it without thinking about anything practical that we can do. So, if the mind is in control then we lament and this is actually among the three modes which is the mode of ignorance, tamo guna. But we can learn from the past and we can also rectify to some extent for what we have done.
That requires us to be in a calm, clear disposition. In the Bhagavad Gita it is in the mode of goodness sattva guna. At that time we think okay I spoke this and why did I speak like that? Maybe something provoked me because of which I spoke like that.
So, usually when we have done some, we have spoken or acted in a hurting way to others, the first thing we should do is apologize. Apologize sincerely, genuinely and then if some way we can rectify that is the second thing we should rectify. That means if by our words, not only I didn’t hurt, somebody else has got some misconception about them.
Then we can try to clarify those misconceptions or we can give some gift or something like that. It is not just in words but it is also in actions to minimize or counter the bad consequences of whatever happened. And third is correct.
Correct means not just I resolve, I will not do that but try to think of the situation over there and what made me do that at that time. If I just say oh, I just lost my temper okay, losing my temper is fine but what are the circumstances that caused me to lose my temper? If I evaluate that situation then if we understand, see if I am going on a road and I know that there is a pothole on the road. I don’t think in America you have potholes.
In India on the roads often potholes are there. So if there is a pothole on the road, if I know in advance there is a pothole over there then I will take my car on the side so that I don’t get a bump. So like that in the road of our life also sometimes we hit potholes.
So when we can find out okay, these are certain situations when I tend to become a little testy, I tend to become a little touchy, grouchy, irritable then we should ourselves be able to withdraw from that situation. Okay, I will not have any further discussion right now. I need to cool down.
I need to calm down. So if we analyze and learn that way then we will not only just a resolution, I will not speak like this that is not enough. Trying to understand what made me speak like this and what were the circumstances under which I was and trying to avoid that kind of pressure situations or preparing to deal with those pressure situations that can help us to actually avoid repeating this and all this becomes easier when we have spiritual strength.
When we practice bhakti then rather than lamenting, letting the mind go here and there and letting the mind take us here and there we are able to actually focus calmly and think should I do this, how can I do this and how I can improve myself. So essentially by practicing bhakti we can actually move towards rectifying whatever mistakes we have done in the most effective way by apologizing, rectifying the consequences and correcting ourselves.