How can we go from blaming to forgiving?
Answer Podcast
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, when we talk about, say, we have a tendency to blame others or blame our environment, and then by forgiving, we can go beyond that blaming mentality. We can overcome the scars. How exactly does it happen? Actually, it’s not just blaming in itself is a bad thing.
It’s that we have to objectively analyze what is the cause of a problem. And if somebody else is responsible, yes, they are responsible. If we are responsible, we are responsible.
But whoever is responsible, ultimately we have to move on. What has happened in the past is gone. Mahabharata says that lamentation about the past keeps us locked in the past.
So, lamentation becomes like a wall which locks our consciousness in the past, prevents us from using the present properly and prevents us from preparing for the future. So, we have to break that blockage of our consciousness so that we can flow onwards. And forgiveness is a vital part of breaking that blockage of consciousness.
Now, if someone has hurt us, then forgiving itself is not very easy because the wounds run deep. And how exactly we forgive at different times, that will be dependent on time, place, circumstance. So, there can be some situations where that person did something wrong, but it’s just a one-off event.
Then we forgive and we just move on in our life. Okay, that happened. That person has apologized.
That person is rectified. There’s no need to hold that one mistake forever in their face and let that come in between the relationship. So, that’s when they themselves have rectified and apologized and this is a one-off event.
So, if we just hold it back, then it chokes the relationship. It chokes us from going onwards. But what if that person did a one-off mistake, but we don’t know? They may do it again also.
They are going to rectify or they are not going to rectify. So, there is, sometimes we equate forgiving and trusting. But the two are very different things.
Forgiving is for the past, whatever they have done. Trusting is about the future, what they will do. And forgiveness can be given, but trust has to be earned.
So, it’s only if somebody has hurt us and we again not just forgive them, we start trusting them. Then we simply set ourselves up for being hurt again. So, there might be a period when we just have a distance.
You know, we don’t reject the person, but we can’t just accept them at the same level where we were before the hurt happened, before we were hurt. So, then at that time, we just forgive, but don’t trust. And over a period of time, by observing how they conduct themselves, they may move towards the first level.
We may want to forgive and just move on in our life. The trust also comes back over a period of time. But the other could be that that person has just not only done the wrong, but sometimes they don’t even apologize.
They have no intention of correcting the wrong. They are just going on doing the same thing again. So, at that time, if we just simply keep forgiving them, then that means simply we are hurting ourselves by that.
We are setting ourselves to be hurt by them. And at that time, we may need to take some action. So, that action can be done in a vengeful mood or it can be done in a dutiful mood.
So, when it’s done with vengefulness, then that still keeps the negativity within us. I want to get back at you. And what happens is, if we let that vengefulness stay within us, even if we get back at that person, vengefulness becomes a habit of the mind.
And then after that, we’ll find some other wrong which someone else has done, and then we’ll become vengeful about that. So, instead of having that vengefulness, there can be forgiveness as an attitude of the mind, as a disposition, and there can be forgiveness of the action. So, in a sense, we can forgive a person, okay, you did this wrong.
I’m not going to hold it against you. But at the same time, if you keep doing this wrong, you’re going to hurt other people. You’re going to hurt me also.
And ultimately, if we consider the law of karma, whatever goes around comes around, and you’re going to hurt yourself also. So, we have to stop that. So, we can do it in a sense of duty that I have to protect this person.
So, I have to prevent this person from hurting me or hurting others in future. And then whatever, sometimes we may have to take an action also for that purpose. We may do that.
It’s a legal action or punitive action or whatever. But we do it in a non-vengeful mood. It’s more in a dutiful mood.
And so, now in this case, once we do this act of forgiving, so forgiving is not just an emotion that we feel. It’s a decision that we make. I’m not going to hold this.
I’m not going to let this hold me back anymore. I’m not going to let this choke me. This is a chapter of my life that is over.
I’ve done what I could to deal with it. Now, I’m going to move on in my life. So, then when we do that, then there is not so much of an emotional investment in that.
Or not investment, there’s not so much emotional fixation in that particular happening. So, just like if, say, I have a wound on my hand, and it’s a festering wound, then if I touch it, someone touches it, or it touches the floor, or touches the wall, it’s pain. Now, if it is a bad wound, even after it is healed, some scar will be there.
But sometimes, some scars are just dried up. They’re there, but they don’t hurt. They’re just there.
So, like that, if we have been badly hurt, the scars will be there for lifelong. But after we forgive, then basically, it’s like a festering wound becomes like a passive scar. We remember, but because there’s no emotional fixation, there’s not so much agitation by that.
Okay, that is something bad happened to me. And, you know, we learn in life, we grow in life. But as long as you’re not done, and you’re not forgiven, then that recollection of that hurt is like a festering wound.
It keeps agitating us. So in that sense, forgiveness is, it’s not about forgetting. It’s about remembering in a new way.
Remembering in a new way, which does not involve the emotional fixation, which does not involve the agitation which would otherwise feel. And that can be, when we can remember in a new way, then we can actually learn from it and we can grow in our life. Otherwise, we stay stuck over there emotionally.
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