Inner healing through forgiveness

[Talk at Intel, Phoenix, USA]

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
and there’s some inconvenience because the venue got shifted at the last moment so we’ll speak on this topic of inner healing through forgiveness and I’ll speak this in four parts first I’ll talk about what forgiveness is and what forgiveness does then I’ll talk about what are the steps involved in forgiveness then we’ll talk about how the relationships evolve after the thought process of forgiveness forgiveness in intention and forgiveness in action then we’ll conclude with a thought exercise that can prompt us towards forgiveness so yeah so one of the most significant findings with respect to the field of mind-body medicine is on the healing power of forgiveness many researchers have found that when we hold negativity against others so for example this is just one book a handbook of positive psychology psychology of forgiveness there an article resentfulness and revengefulness are like inner toxins they’re emotional toxins that they hurt us emotionally as well as physically when we hold on to resentment towards someone psychologists give the example that it’s like if I’m holding a burning red hot coal so that I can hurl it at the person who has hurt me I may get the chance, I may not get the chance but all in the mind when I’m holding that coal it’s burning me so resenting something that someone has done it hurts us much more than it hurts others it hurts us emotionally because you can feel the negativity and that negativity has physical effects also at the same time when somebody has done something wrong our inner world recoils against the idea of letting them go scot-free how can such a serious mistake such a serious blunder there has to be some retribution some action against it so forgiveness appears as if we are letting that person completely off the hook and go scot-free and we have been often hurt hurt severely by the way others have acted so this idea of forgiveness seems to be unbearable it might seem like some ideal for some saintly people who have nothing to do with their day-to-day life so before we move towards what forgiveness is I would like to talk about four points of what forgiveness is not so first thing is forgiving is not trusting when we trust someone the direction of forgiving and trusting are opposite trusting is for the future forgiving is for the past when somebody has done something wrong we won’t hold that against the person and have the vengeful attitude towards them but forgiving doesn’t mean that we will just trust them in future forgiveness can be given but trust has to be earned if we give something valuable to someone to carry it and they lost it then we may forgive them for that but next time we will not give them something valuable to carry we will not at least give immediately so when we mix forgiving and trusting then we go towards one extreme where we just repeat the same mistakes again and again or rather we let the other person make the same mistake again and again and there is no improvement that happens so on the other hand if we equate forgiving and trusting we may not even forgive and we hold on to the past and that also hurts us forgiving is also not condoning condoning means it’s all right these things happen there is nothing very seriously wrong about it when I am talking about forgiveness here we will have an underlying assumption to the discussion that the other person has actually done something seriously wrong that has hurt us sometimes some people may just hurt us accidentally unintentionally we are not talking about that over here we are talking about when somebody has done something wrong seriously wrong disappointed us they betrayed us acted in a very irresponsible way in a particular situation so forgiving doesn’t mean okay it’s all right the action is wrong but we are ready to let go of the past next point is so it’s about go ahead forgiving is also not excusing condoning means okay the action was not wrong excusing means actually you are not wrong it is not you are responsible it is the circumstances this happened, that happened because of that you forgot because of that you acted like this you know forgiving involves the person is responsible all of us have free will and the way we use our free will influences us and influences others so we do acknowledge that when somebody is doing something wrong we are not excusing them for that excusing means you know it is the circumstances which made you do it no you had the capacity to choose in a different way but you chose this way and lastly forgiving is not forgetting forgetting is often a sign of oblivion when people get dementia they forget that’s often quite tragic if we forget what we have experienced we can’t learn from it so learning if it’s to be there we cannot have forgetting in that but forgiveness means that we create a new way of remembering so for example if my hand is cut then as soon as I touch the hand over there there is a pain there is severe pain over there if over time the wound heals then also the scar remains but once the scar is there that mark is there that mark will remind me but the scar will not actually pain scar is just there as a reminder that happened so when the wound is healed the scar may be there but the scar doesn’t cause pain similarly so when we forgive someone before we forgive the hurt is like a raw wound every time we think about it agitates us it frustrates us it infuriates us but forgiveness releases that it allows that wound to heal the scar will remain but we will be able to see it recollect it with some distance some detachment the emotional fixation that is there in the past which makes us go through all the emotional upheavals that will not be there emotional fixation means that often when somebody has done something wrong our mind keeps going back that track suppose we are going along a road and somebody just cuts us across another person goes off now I am into more if I keep looking back how did I do that why did I do that I am looking back I will meet with some other accident so I cannot live in the past but still I will remember this person drove like this but once we forgive the emotional fixation that is there that is not there so we have emotional memories and we have we could say more of intellectual memories so some of us may know that India got independence on a particular date for most of us it is more of an intellectual memory but see people one generation earlier and they lived there was partition at that time so for them it is not just intellectual memory it is not just information it is emotional memory so as long as our emotions are invested in a particular thing then we get agitated but forgiveness means we release that emotions and then it creates a new way of remembering we can observe objectively and we can take the lessons of learning from it but we don’t forget why don’t we not forget I will talk about that later we have to make sure that the same person doesn’t victimise us in the same way so we have to be alert so forgiving is not forgetting then what exactly is forgiving forgiveness means that we release we free ourselves from the inner onslaught of negativity from the poison and what does it literally mean this happened for whatever reason you did it I am not going to hold it against you sometimes we say is forgiveness an emotion or is it a decision it is both at a particular point we have to make that decision I am not going to hold this against you once we make that decision then at a particular point that decision will become a conviction yes even after we make the decision still the negative memory will come and attack us the resentful thoughts will keep coming but once we make the decision I am not going to pursue a vengeful agenda so often the thoughts that come into our minds they are like windows that pop up google sometimes use ads so now if we click on one ad and after that 50 ads of a similar kind will pop up but if we don’t click on that ad that ad will disappear and some other ad will come so basically every time the thought of resentful thought, revengeful thought comes, if we make a decision I am not going to indulge in this I am not going to go in this path of revenge fantasy, then that will keep coming for some time but gradually its intensity will decrease so then forgiveness as a decision which we need to take and forgiveness as an emotion will come gradually but without that decision the emotion will not come so easily and when that emotion when that decision comes followed by the emotion then gradually we will feel relieved that burning piece of coal that we are holding to hurt someone, we instead of hurling it at someone we just throw it away I don’t want to hold it anymore that way we will find ourselves becoming freed from this poison of the negativity now there is forgiveness in intention and there is forgiveness in action so in intention means that we don’t have forgiveness as a decision means we don’t have any vengeful agenda to it, you hurt me I will hurt you back so no I have more important things in life than just to get back at someone who has hurt me in intention forgiveness means we don’t have vengeful agenda but in action forgiveness can play out in different ways in different situations a lot will depend on the other person’s attitude or reaction generally an interaction happens we say it’s person A, the other person is B and in between there is the emotion with which we are interacting so we won’t be direct, forgiveness means we no longer direct a negative vengeful emotion towards that person because even to direct that emotion we have to hold that emotion ourselves but that doesn’t mean that automatically the attitude will become positive, that will depend on how that person reacts so when we say that there is no agenda of getting even an example for that it could be like a snake walking through some woodlands suddenly we feel a stinging sensation on our foot and we see a snake slithering away now I get angry how dare this snake bite me I will teach it a lesson as the snake is slithering away I run after the snake and I catch its head and pound it with my foot once, twice, take that take that now even if I succeed in pounding that snake to death what am I doing I am pounding myself to death the snake has bitten me the more I try to run after it, the more I act the more the poison will spread within me faster if the poison spreads within me that’s going to kill me so when the snake has bitten me the first thing I need to do is not get even, but get safe I have to make sure the poison is removed from my body so forgiveness and intention is basically, I am not going to go after the snake I want to make sure I get the poison out of my body so just as when a snake bites at that time the snake is the offender but the pain and the poison come inside us like that when people hurt us they seem to be going scot-free not only we suffer the pain but along with the pain of the bite there is the poison the poison of the resentment that is within us so the pain may subside over a period of time but the poison has to be brought out the poison has to be removed and that is what forgiveness and intention is now after I have got the poison out if that snake was in my vicinity, if that snake was in my property then I have to be careful I may have to do something then I may decide we have to get the snake out or if there are too many snakes over here we may have to get some snake antidote keep it readily available or we get some expert to get the snake out from here to eliminate the snakes so after that there is a practical action to be done so in intention we need to get the poison of negativity and resentment out after that when we come to our forgiveness in action what does it mean? It depends on the other person’s disposition how they react if we wait and watch if the snake was slithering by that area and it never comes back again then there is no need to go deep into the forest to find the snake and kill it so sometimes all of us go through different moods, all of us have different things happening in our lives and in the spur of the moment sometimes someone may speak and do things which are completely uncharacteristic of their normal nature and if once they have done something like that then there is no need to hold it for a lifetime that is just like a snake once slithering off to the area but if that is something which is a pattern which is happening repeatedly then it’s a whole different ball game at that time so there are two broad possibilities one is if that person is repentant and they want to reform the other is if they are unrepentant and they have no intention of reforming sometimes people hurt us and they don’t even acknowledge that they hurt us so in these two situations there are two different reactions that is required so if they are, I made a mistake, I am sorry about it I will be careful in future then we forgive in action and start interacting and maybe by that we may, the trust may develop so by their action of apologising by their actions which show that they want to change, they are trying to change those are the actions which will earn trust and when the trust is earned then the relationship can be redeveloped so that happens on many occasions when people just incidentally commit one mistake and they realise the gravity of the wound that they have caused to the other person they reform and in some cases that may not happen they just go to the other extreme I did what I did if you are hurt that’s your problem then if that is their attitude then we have to create a safe distance the first step is that we don’t want to be hurt again so then we may have to create a distance between the relationship by which they don’t have the power to hurt that’s for our own protection we may have to take some action it depends on what kind of mistake it is, what kind of hurt that they have inflicted so some kind of disciplinary action may be required redressal can be in various ways if we are in the position of authority we take that action ourselves if we are not in the position of authority, we may approach some authority, it may be an organisation maybe ombudsman, if it’s a legally culpable crime, we may approach the police all this can also be done with a forgiving disposition the intention is to forgive I am not holding this against you but I want to protect myself or if it’s a pattern that has been going on repeatedly it’s not just we who have been hurt other people also have been hurt then letting such a person go as caught free will mean they’ll just keep hurting others so we can’t we may even tolerate abuse by someone but it’s not just our tolerating abuse it is more that that person’s abusiveness gets empowered then they will continue that habit again and again sometimes for their correction we may pursue this this cannot be allowed it’s not with the agenda of retribution it’s for our good and for their good it’s not because you cause me pain so you have to suffer pain so forgiveness has to be balanced by the principle of justice sometimes forgiveness means we completely way of justice ok you made a mistake let’s put it in the past and move on but if it’s something which is happening repeatedly then forgiveness cannot replace justice there can be forgiveness in intention but justice may need to be sought but even when we are seeking justice if there is no forgiveness then there is the emotional fixation when will this person be punished why are people not understanding such a terrible thing when we are emotionally fixated then we become we become hypersensitive we become touchy we become unreasonable and anybody who fails to empathise with us we start holding them also comfortable so then that lack of forgiveness becomes a filter through which we look at the whole world and sometimes when people have hurt us they have hurt us on one occasion or maybe in one series of occasions but it’s one relationship but if we hold on to negativity because of that relationship then that becomes a filter through which we process the whole world and that filter distorts our perception of everything and everyone we have a particular perception of reality and anyone who doesn’t agree with that they become the bad guy this person is bad all those who don’t empathise become bad and then that one bad relationship leads to other relationships also becoming bad so we don’t need to go in that direction I am not doing this to get even with that person I am doing this to protect myself or to correct that person now among these two also which we may choose protection or correction that will vary broadly speaking when we face any difficult situation in our life there are three options we have one is change ourselves and tolerate the situation act to change the situation third is walk away from the situation so if we have a colleague who is backbiting who is doing politics against us who is creating a lot of trouble for us what do we do at that time three options one is okay this person’s nature I will do my work let my work speak let my performance speak I will not get into this but if that person is troubling us too much and he is not just to me but others also then we may try to change the situation this is a pattern which is harmful if it is continued we may try to report to the appropriate authorities we may take necessary steps for correction but suppose nothing happens maybe people don’t take it seriously enough or for whatever reason then we just decide walk away from there we go into some other team eventually we work with different people at different times we just move on in our life so all these three options are open for us and all these three options can be done with positive intent or with negative intent if I walk away from a situation walking away is different from running away when I run away my mind is still caught over there when we are running away from something we are not really concerned about where we are going I just want to go away from here that is the only thing that is so we may physically go away but our mind is still caught in that but walking away means I have better things to do in my life I don’t want to get involved in this business so I move on when we do that we move with positive intent negative intent means this person is creating so much trouble I want to get out of here positive intent means I have something better to do I won’t get involved in this messy business I stay here, maybe I can fight back maybe I can correct the situation but it’s not worth my time I have something more to do in my life so similarly we may also decide to change myself, tolerate quite often people some people are itching for a fight and the more we get back at them, the more they hit back at us and sometimes people just their delight in life is just picking up fights then if we get into a fight with such people we are wasting our time we just say, ok, this person they hit out at us and if there is no response once, twice, they find out ok, this person, there is no fun in fighting with such a person not fighting back only we will find somebody who will fight back and then they move on so tolerating and also the positive intent is niggling this person it can be done with positive or negative intent with negative intent people always trample me treat me like a I like like trash we just go into the zone of self pity that is damaging so the point is not the action that we do, the point is the disposition with which we are doing the action and when we have the right disposition that ok, I have a purpose in my life, that purpose I want to pursue and whatever enables me to do that, I will do that then we will be able to make the right choice over there so this is where for choosing one of these options, for implementing forgiveness in action a spiritual perspective can be very empowering spiritual perspective means that we are bigger than our own we are bigger than our bodies, we are bigger than our careers we are bigger than our relationships we are bigger than the societies the yoga texts explain that we are at our core spiritual beings, spiritual beings we are indestructible and whatever happens in the social interactions around us that actually affects our shell, it doesn’t affect our core it is it matters to us but it doesn’t define who we are just a couple of weeks ago I was in Texas it was hit by a heavy flood, because of the storms flooding happened so now, if we are in a flood afflicted area looking out of the window and we see the water level is rising, rising, rising I become panicky, what should I do now should I try to escape from here, should I stay here and as we see the water rising we look around and suddenly there is a door over here open the door and it is not a regular house we have just been staying there as a guest oh, there is a flight of stairs up so I take the stairs up and I rise and I see the water, the same water which was threatening me enormously earlier now I can see it with greater calmness it is rising but I am higher up I am higher up so the same event which caused me which got me worried earlier, now I am concerned but I am not disturbed because I don’t feel immediately threatened similarly we normally conceive of ourselves as physical beings and we define ourselves in terms of our social roles, social positions social interactions and then when anything goes wrong in that if we are threatened with losing our position we are threatened with the disruption of a relationship then that appears to be threatening our core being itself but if we have a spiritual self-understanding then that means that we rise to a higher level yes, I am I am having this career I am having this relationship I am having this position but these are the roles that I am playing the roles I am playing doesn’t mean in a false sense but they are what I am doing but they are not what I am there is being and there is doing so who we are is different from what we are doing and this difference between being and doing this difference between being and doing is what we appreciate by spiritual wisdom that yes, this is happening in my life, it matters to me but I am different this understanding can give us a certain sense of calmness when we rise to this higher level, we understand that I have a higher purpose to my life the yoga text explains that actually we are on a multi-life journey of spiritual evolution that we are spiritual beings and we are having a human journey right now we are having human experiences and some of those experiences are pleasant, some of them are not just unpleasant some of them can be devastating but we are bigger than these experiences and this we can perceive even with a little reflection maybe if we consider 15 years ago, 20 years ago, something that if we look at what happened in our life at that time we might have something which was a big trauma for us but now if we look back, it is not such a big thing sometimes if we remember how worried we were how frenzied we were at that time we may laugh at ourselves what is there to be so worked up about so whatever we are going through right now it is temporary and we are much bigger than whatever is happening in our life, so by understanding that we have a bigger being and we have a bigger destiny then that gives us a sense of purpose and perspective I am not going to get caught in this because I have better things to do in my life perspective, yes, this is bad but things like this have happened in the past and maybe not exactly the same thing but yes ups and downs keep happening let me move on, in our life in some relationships, some relationships work out well, some relationships work out not so well, some relationships work out terribly, that’s how life is, but we keep moving on now this is not just a thought exercise that, ok, there is a higher level of reality and I can ascend to that this is also experience we can have and there are different processes of spiritual practise by which one can get those experiences some people practise meditation some people practise chanting, some people pray, now all these are ways in which one rises from material consciousness to spiritual consciousness the important thing is to raise one’s consciousness upwards and once our consciousness is raised up we discover that we have layers of strength that we didn’t know we had suppose we get a new machine, new phone and then ok, this is this feature, this feature look at what all features are there and we’ve been using this new phone for quite some time and we need some new feature and suddenly we discover that feature already is there in the phone, I just didn’t know it was there, it’s a pleasant surprise for us something in that phone which we didn’t know was actually there we discover it, so like that often spiritual, often the negative experiences that we have in our relationships if those relationships can become prompts for inner exploration then we can they can prompt us to discover our spiritual side normally at the material level ok, let me have this relationship, this relationship this interaction, this position all these we are trying to explore, and yes we can explore those, but when we move upwards we discover a new layer of strength, a new level of reality and that is extremely empowering ultimately at the spiritual level we understand that I am a part of a whole, and that whole is actually much bigger and that whole has a much bigger plan, and in this what is happening right now is just incidental it will come, it will go that, not just our understanding of ourselves as spiritual but our understanding of our connection with the whole that brings calmness, normally we think of life in only two terms things are in my control or things are out of my control but in the spiritual perspective we understand that even when things are out of my control they are not out of control there is some plan going on and let me do my part here one so this higher purpose some of you are from India so if you have travelled in Indian locals, metros people are squeezed together so when we are squeezed together somebody pushes against us, we push back against them now if we are in a crowded train and if somebody pushes us back we push them back but that is not the purpose of being in the local isn’t it, you push me back, I’ll push you back, you push me, I’ll push you back we want to get to a particular destination and when we are focused on whether I reach that destination, if I reach it, I get out and move on they can keep pushing people all that they want, we have to go to our destination so when we have a material conception of life often that long term purpose is not there, you pushed me how can I let you get away I’ll push you back but in the spiritual perspective you understand, life is meant for better things than this pushing back at people who have pushed us in life sometimes some people may push intentionally, some people may push unintentionally, but the important thing is if they are blocking our way itself and moving forward then we have to push back and push them out of the way, but it is pushing back while we are there and we can just move our way then put those things in perspective we don’t have to when we understand the big destiny that is there for us all of us have been given certain talents all of us are meant to make certain contributions and if we let everything that matters everything that happens matter then we don’t let what matters happen if we let everything that happens matter, you spoke like this, you did like this if you let all of it matter, then what happens we don’t let what matters happen if we are so caught up consumed by what, who did and what, who said then our energy gets dissipated in that and the energy that we could use to develop our talents, to make our contributions that gets dissipated so if we keep our eyes if we are purposeful in terms of understanding that there is a higher plan and as per that plan I have been given certain abilities, I am meant to make my contributions somebody is coming in the way I may push back and move forward but this pushing back for the sake of getting back is not my purpose so spiritual knowledge brings a hugeness to our vision of our life which is often lacking when we get caught in the negativity of resentfulness, so I conclude with this point that the emotions of resentment shrinks our world when we are resentful and revengeful, the whole world gets shrunk to how can I get back at this person, almost any and every interaction that we are doing with others we are thinking maybe I could do this maybe this will help me to get back at that person help me to get back at that person so our reality shrinks to simply getting back at someone but forgiveness expands our world, yes this thing happened but there are many more things to do in my life and with that broader picture this expansion of our world spiritual knowledge helps us to see the bigger world the bigger destiny that is before us and the bigger, the greater depths that are there to our being by that we can resist whatever wrongs others may have done we don’t let them trample us but we don’t go out of the way to trample them back we just move onwards in our way, so even big things are small when compared to the big destiny that awaits us ok so yeah this is a thought exercise which like to carry home with you we all have certain driving questions in our life what do I want to achieve what do I want to do so if it is lunch time the driving question is when can I get lunch if you are tired the driving question is when can I sleep these are incidental driving questions, they are circumstantial all of us have certain driving questions over our life so when a person has hurt us then often the why question starts resonating why did you do that, why did you do that, why, why, why and in life many times the why question just has no answers we don’t know the world is so big and why people behave if we ask why did you do like that sometimes if we look at ourselves hey why did I do that we can’t explain sometimes our own behaviour so we may not ever get satisfactory answers on why somebody behaved like that we need to change our driving question from why to how ok how can I best move ahead now should I just change myself and tolerate, should I change the situation and seek some correction or protection or should I just move out of here walk away from the situation so the how question will release the emotional energy that is choked by the why question why, why, why, why as the mind goes on the same beaten track again and again our emotional energy gets choked but the how question releases the energy how can I move ahead now I can take this one step one step, one step and as we keep taking small, small steps eventually we find that whatever the situation that was there has just become part of history either that person goes out of our life or that person changes or we move on and we develop other relationships and that just becomes a memory from which we learn but that is not a memory that agitates us so forgiveness releases us to become who we are meant to be whereas resentfulness it distorts us into someone who is simply a reaction of someone else we become basically a negative reflection of the person who has hurt us you did this, I’ll do that but forgiveness releases us to be who we are meant to be I’ll quickly summarise so I spoke today about inner healing through forgiveness and I spoke about how researchers have found that resentment and revengefulness they cause emotional and physiological problems people get stress and other issues but to forgive we have to understand what forgiveness is and what it is not we discussed four things it is not forgiving is not trusting, it is for the future forgiveness is not condoning what you did was not wrong forgiving is not excusing you are not responsible just pressure of the circumstances forgiving is not also forgetting we want to learn from the past so forgiving means the raw wound changes to a scar, it’s there but it doesn’t hurt so we are no longer emotionally fixated in it so forgiveness has to be taken as a decision before it will be felt as an emotion decision means that when the resentful thoughts come I won’t entertain them I’ll not go in that direction as we keep refusing to click on those mental prompts, then gradually they will disappear and we’ll experience the emotional release also of forgiveness otherwise it’s like a coal we are holding on to hurl at someone, it burns us as long as it is us and forgiveness in intention means no agenda to hit back the snake has bit me, I’m not going to go and beat the snake or first is not get even but get safe get the poison out and then after that forgiveness in action can be that if the snake is just slithering by just let it go, no need to search for it the incidental action for which that person is repentant and is actually wanting to reform, then no need to hold it back, you can gradually they can earn the trust and the relationship can redevelop but if they are unrepentant, they are unforgiving, if the snake is repeatedly coming and biting, then we may forgive in intention but in action, we may seek some disciplinary action for protecting ourselves or for correcting that person so that they don’t keep hurting others and when we have a difficult situation which course do we pursue that will depend primarily on our disposition and the situation, we can either change ourselves and tolerate, we can change the other person by taking some corrective actions or we may just walk away, all of these can be done with negative intent and they will only hurt us but with positive intent, each of these options can help us grow and for the simulation of this growth, we can have a broader vision of ourselves and our purpose so if we understand ourselves to be spiritual beings, then whatever other people have done, the physical as well as the emotional is actually peripheral to the core of who we are, so they may hurt us but they don’t hurt our core, they only hurt our shell, when a flood is coming I rise to a higher level that the flood doesn’t threaten so by the process of yoga, meditation, prayer chanting, we can experience ourselves to be spiritual and then the ups and downs of life won’t threaten us so much and all the more so if we realise that at the spiritual level, we are parts and there is a whole and there is a plan for our life, then things that are out of our control we don’t get panicky and think that they are out of control but there is some plan which we may reveal, so we focus on our purpose if somebody is pushing us in a crowded place, we don’t have to push them back unless they are blocking our way we have better things to do in our life than just push back at people who are pushing us by keeping our focus on that purpose of doing justice to the talents that we have, of bringing out our potentials, material and spiritual and of wanting to make contributions and that can change our defining question, from why did they do this to how can I move ahead now and whereas forgiveness shrinks our world to how can I get back, when will I get back at this person, forgiveness expands our world to help us see what avenues are open for us and the mental energy the emotional energy that was choked by resentment will be released by forgiveness and we will be able to move forward to become what we are meant to be and not just become a negative reflection of the person who has hurt us. Thank you very much Are there any questions? Any questions or comments? How do you react to the pain? It’s often difficult sometimes, most of the time you tend to react out of the cup maybe life teaches you not to do that over the time but how do you go there how do you train yourself not to be impulsive as you said if you let things matter then you never get to things that really matter to you yes how do you train yourself so often we react impulsively so you may understand the principle but how do we apply the process I will take a metaphor of driving a car sometimes the car may hit a bump and then there is a jerk because of that if that is a road which we are regularly going through then we know here is a bump, let me go slowly or let me manoeuvre around the way so we anticipate similarly there are some people with whom our interactions can be bumpy Oscar Wilde said that the two kinds of people, some people bring happiness where they go and some people bring happiness when they go so interacting with some people may be difficult for us talking with some people is like walking on landmines what action of ours will cause what explosion we just don’t know so now if we by our past interactions know that this person is like this then that means we understand I am walking on a bumpy road so we prepare in advance go slowly, take small steps the bump will hurt us much more when we are going faster than when we are going slower so anticipation is very important in avoiding impulsive reactions that means we look at ourselves and find out what situations are the times which provoke me whether that person is right or I am right that is not the right point what are the situations when this happens and if I am going to get into that situation then slow down don’t be so impulsive don’t be so fast now along with anticipation the second thing is that generally our emotion is a function of our expectation that means if we have expected a person to do something and they don’t do it, we become angry but if we know that that person is unreliable in a particular thing then we won’t have that expectation from them here there are some people there is a difference between people who are insensitive and people who are desensitised so say we want to talk with someone and say somebody wants to talk with me and they touch me on the shoulder but suppose I have eye glasses on the shoulder I have no sensation, they are touching me, touching me how rude, I am touching you why is he not looking at me they just don’t get it because that person is not getting the sensation so like that some people they are desensitised to certain things so for example some people may be desensitised to punctuality they just don’t realise the importance of coming on time some people may be desensitised to cleanliness some people may be desensitised to courtesy you greet them they act as if they don’t see us I am just giving extreme examples here but it is not that they are deliberately being insensitive means that they just don’t care for our emotions desensitised means they don’t have that capacity only to care so the worst possible scenario is when we are super sensitised to something and the other person is desensitised to it so we are very cleanliness conscious and the other person as soon as they enter a room it is as if a hurricane has come in that room what happened so then at that time if we tell them once, twice, thrice and nothing happens then we have to understand that this person is desensitised to it they don’t have that expectation now how to act practically that we may have to decide but expecting something from a person in an area where they are desensitised that only sets us up for frustration so we decrease the expectation based on understanding their nature a third point would be that we need to also check ourselves that means often the first wrong reaction is not as big as a problem as a second wrong reaction that means what that if a snake has bitten me and I am aggressive so I start running after the snake and then suddenly I realise what am I doing I should be running after the snake I already run this much now let me run full and I will beat the snake sometimes what happens when we do a wrong reaction we realise that we reacted wrongly but somehow now I have done it do it fully now if you got angry give the full blast now but no there is no need for that as soon as we realise stop so often it is not the first mistake that is the problem sometimes the instinctive reaction is almost impossible to avoid somebody does something wrong instinctively we get clenched our voice rises we want to shout at them so yes a little reaction may come out but as soon as you realise stop but sometimes because we have made a resolution that I am not going to get angry and then if I get angry now I got angry let me get fully angry so that is how we aggravate the situation so rather than expecting perfect impulse control whatever impulse control I get let me work with that so if we again with respect to don’t have too much expectation from others but we needn’t have too much expectation from ourselves even if I it’s like if I take a wrong turn on the road in one particular way if I take a wrong turn why did I take the wrong turn why did I take the wrong turn you took a wrong turn now take a right turn and come back but if I just beating myself why did I take the wrong turn I am moving along further in the wrong direction so physically in travel we would not keep moving along in the wrong direction but emotionally in our reactions we keep doing that so as soon as we realise that it’s the wrong thing let me stop and correct ourselves so also if we have regular spiritual practises let’s situate ourselves in our spiritual identity then we don’t feel so threatened by the other person because we are having the security of our spiritual self understanding but we are not rooted in that spiritual self understanding then when that other person does something wrong it’s not just a mistake that they have committed it’s more we feel threatened by it how could you do this it means that they don’t respect me it means that I am not respectable I will show you how much respectable I am I will show you how much power I have so often our aggressive reactions are expressions of our own insecurity that we feel that we are not being respected now yes, it’s not that we want to be disrespected but simply whether I am being respected or not that is not the primary basis for acting in a particular situation respect is required in relationships but what is the right course to move forward in the situation that should be our primary consideration so if we are situated in our spiritual self understanding then we won’t act out out of insecurity we will act more maturely and sometimes we may also act strongly but we will do it not impulsively but intelligently