We often hear of people being cheated, swindled and going bankrupt. How does a normal person come to terms with such setbacks? Can he learn to forgive the offending person?
This material world is like the prison house of God; souls who have turned their backs towards Him have been put here. So, we cannot expect the people of this world to behave like saints. There will always be persons who will come to cheat us, and on some occasions they may even succeed. That is life; we all get cheated once in a while. But the important thing is to learn to take it in our stride. That is where the quality of forgiveness comes in.
If we continue to harbor resentment towards those who have wronged us, we will be unable to progress spiritually. Resentment acts like poison on the mind, filling it with bitterness. And we keep reliving the sour experience within, pinned down to the past. Someone aptly said: “Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”
On the spiritual path we must be careful not to nurture ill feelings towards anyone, realizing that they will harm us more than anyone else. Jagadguru Shree Kripaluji Maharaj says:
“Even in your dreams, do not make the mistake of harboring ill-will towards anyone.”
Forgiveness is a sublime personality trait that immediately releases all bitterness from the mind. It is a favor we do, not to the other person, but to ourselves. The lives of saintly people are full of inspiring stories of how they forgave their wrongdoers, and even succeeded in winning them over by their love.
A person made an attempt on the life of Mahatma Gandhi, while he was living in South Africa. Mahatma Gandhi refused to hate the man. He said, “I shall love him, and win his love.” One year later, that same man came and apologized to before Mahatma Gandhi, and wept for forgiveness. This is the characteristic of great personalities; they refuse to allow their minds to dwell on hatred towards anyone.
Whilst we practice this, we must also be cautious that nobody attempts to exploit us our situation.
On the spiritual path, we naturally learn to practice tolerance, forgiveness and humility. However, this does not mean that we should knowingly allow others to exploit us. The scriptures instruct us to take whatever action is necessary, when attacked, for protecting ourselves in self-defense.
There is a charming story in this regard. In a neighborhood, there lived a venomous and foul-tempered snake. The children of that locality were scared to death of it. The moment they spy on from a distance, they would run for their lives.
One day, Sage Narad happened to come to that neighborhood. As was the snake’s habit, he approached Narad ji, with his hood raised menacingly. Narad ji stood his ground peacefully, with a benevolent and serene smile on his face. The snake was astonished. “Everyone runs from me in fear. How come you are not scared of me and what is the secret of your peacefulness?”
Narad ji taught the snake the process of devotion, whereupon the snake became his disciple and began practicing bhakti. He shunned violence, giving up his old ways of scaring the neighborhood boys. Soon the children came to know that the snake was harmless and did not bite anyone. Now their fear vanished. They would not leave it alone. On sighting it, they would bombard it with a battery of stones and sticks. They would even come close and kick it with their heeled shoes. The poor snake was badly bruised.
One year later, Narad ji was visiting that area again. He thought, “Let me see how my disciple is doing.” He was dismayed to see the snake badly bruised. “What happened to you, my dear disciple?” he asked.
The snake replied, “O Gurudev, this is the result of the Bhakti that you taught me. The people of the world, knowing I will not retaliate, do not let me live peacefully.”
Narad ji said, “I asked you to stop biting people, but I did not ask you to stop spreading your hood. Whenever the children attack, you should simply raise your head and hiss loudly; then no one will come near you.”
Henceforth, whenever the children came close to the snake, it would hiss loudly and frighten them all away. Soon, it was living peacefully again. Similarly, on the path of devotion, we should shun actions and thoughts directed at harming others, but definitely, we have the right to perform legitimate actions in our self-defense.
