Mahatma Gandhi once said,
The weak can never forgive.
Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
Although he had a noble intention and purpose behind delivering this statement,
With due respect to Mahatma Gandhi,
I beg to differ on this.
Contrary to common belief,
I have come to understand that forgiveness is absolutely unnecessary.
Now,
This might sound preposterous to many,
As we have always considered forgiveness as a good thing,
And as something that helps us move on.
So before explaining my stance,
I would like to make it clear that I am not saying that forgiveness is a bad thing.
In fact,
There is nothing intrinsically good or bad.
Good and bad are just labels that us human beings have invented as per our current belief systems.
What I am saying here is that forgiveness is unnecessary.
It might be a helpful tool to move on,
But there is something far deeper which we understand would make forgiveness irrelevant.
We will never need to forgive anybody or ask for forgiveness for that matter.
Hi,
My name is Saqib and I welcome you to this talk in which I will talk about the concept which I called Forget Forgiveness.
To understand why forgiveness is not required,
We will have to first understand the context in which I am claiming this to be true.
It is the context of the soul.
And it goes without saying that you will be able to understand this better if either you already believe that you have a soul,
Or you are not sure that the soul exists but are open to the possibility that it does.
We will first have to look at the larger context of our existence than just this particular physical manifestation which we call life.
So let's start by first discussing that what is the purpose of our existence?
Really,
What is the purpose of our existence?
Have we answered this question for ourselves?
I am sure almost everyone of us has asked this question to ourselves,
Our parents,
Our religious leaders,
Scientists,
Or spiritual masters at least a few times in our lives.
I myself have always been intrigued by this question and have done my own enquiry by listening to many spiritual masters,
Scientists,
Religious leaders,
Philosophers,
Etc.
And especially by listening to my own self,
To that constant voice inside me.
So I would like to tell you what I have come to understand.
We existed as one unified soul,
A divine being,
And yet we could not experience our divinity.
We just knew that we are divine.
To experience ourselves as that we are,
We decided to create ourselves as that we are not.
That is,
To experience our own divinity,
We decided to create ourselves in the form that is not divine and that is the physical body.
To explain this better,
I would like to give an example here.
A person who is born in a rich family,
And by rich I mean rich in monetary terms,
And who is supplied with all the luxuries throughout his early life,
Would not realize the value of those luxuries,
As being in luxury is his natural state and he has always known luxury and nothing else.
To realize the value of that luxury,
He will have to come to a state of being which is non-luxurious.
Similarly,
To realize that value of our divinity,
We created ourselves in a form that is opposite to it,
That is,
The physical world of ours.
The purpose of the soul therefore is to fully realize its divinity in this physical manifestation and we do that by expressing our divinity here in the physical life in the form of love,
Compassion and creativity.
Till the time we fully realize and express our divinity in this physical form,
We go through various experiences in the form of physical beings,
Belonging to different species and multiple lives,
Throughout birth and rebirth.
Every experience in this physical form brings us closer to our full realization and expression of our divinity.
Therefore no experience is bad for us.
I would like to repeat that.
Every experience in this physical form brings us closer to our full realization and expression of our divinity.
Therefore no experience is bad for us.
This is the understanding which makes us realize the fact that nobody can ever hurt us.
Whatever anybody does to us,
Only presents us with the opportunity for us to express our divinity.
Therefore if what happened was for our good,
Why do we need to forgive?
In fact,
We need to thank the person for taking us closer to our full expression of divinity in this physical realm.
This my friend is the art of true gratitude.
I would like to tell you about an incidence that happened with Buddha.
My narration might not be exact as it would have happened,
But I would try to be as precise as I can.
Buddha was sitting with his disciples when an angry man came and spit on his face.
After spitting on Buddha's face,
The angry man said furiously to him that he is spreading the message of falsehood.
One of Buddha's disciples whose name was Ananda suddenly got up in anger to stop this mad man who spit on Buddha's face.
Buddha gestured Ananda to stop in his tracks and sit down.
He then wiped his face and turned to the angry man.
The angry man was expecting a retaliation from Buddha.
However,
Buddha said to him,
I thank you from the bottom of my heart for this experience.
It was a test for me.
You spit on my face and there was no change in my state.
In fact,
I am still in a state of bliss.
And we also learned that Ananda yet has to work on its temper.
It is a great learning for us.
Thank you so much.
The man was shocked by Buddha's reaction and went back home.
As this man reported later,
He could not sleep the whole night as Buddha's reaction kept disturbing him.
And it was not fake gratitude that Buddha showed in that moment.
It was utterly genuine.
The next day the man went back to Buddha and dropped to his feet.
If we reach this Buddha level understanding of existence,
We will spend our entire lives in gratitude and bliss.
We will be grateful for the smallest opportunities and even for the biggest disasters.
We will then truly realize that forgiveness is absolutely unnecessary.
The second reason that forgiveness is unnecessary is that we fail to understand the mindset,
The intentions and the thought processes of the person which we think have hurt us.
Everyone is at a different level of consciousness.
And that doesn't mean that one level of consciousness is better than the other level of consciousness.
It's just that everyone is at a different point in the path of their soul's journey.
Hence from that vantage point,
Their view of life,
Existence and the world is absolutely different from someone at a different point in their soul's journey.
In fact,
No two people can have the exact same worldview.
Hence,
According to their model of reality,
They believe that what they do is right.
Every single person,
No matter how cruel they may appear to others,
Have the right intention as per their beliefs.
If we learn to see things as they are,
We will see that every act anyone does is for love.
Again,
I would like to repeat this as it is so important.
Every act anyone does is for love.
It is just that the methodology they use might not be serving the betterment of all the souls.
But that's just because in the current state,
Their level of consciousness is different,
Hence their understanding of existence is distorted.
This also might sound preposterous,
But if we observe the actions of someone closely,
As it is,
Without any judgement,
We will realize this.
Think about this.
We ourselves must be doing or might have done in the past things that would have hurt other people.
Now,
To someone else,
Our behaviour must have been wrong.
But was our intention wrong?
It was just that we had a different model of reality from what we hold now.
It is said that a true psychologist or a spiritual master is never angry with anybody because they know why people do the things they do.
But most of us only see the outcome of a deed that a person did,
But fail to understand their model of reality and fail to see their true intention.
Once we understand this,
We will understand that forgiveness is unnecessary.
And this brings me to the third reason.
It has to do with our expectations.
We expect people to behave in a certain way.
We make them make promises and when they break promises,
We get hurt.
Or sometimes we just imagine that a person would or should behave in a certain way and when that doesn't happen,
We get hurt.
What we are doing is we are going against the natural law of existence.
And this natural law of existence is change.
Everything is changing every moment in the entire existence.
There is nothing that is constant.
In fact,
The only thing that is constant is change itself.
Our thinking and our bodies are changing every moment.
Science says that in every 7 years,
Every cell in our body gets replaced by a new cell.
That means that we have a completely new body every 7 years.
Think of how much we and the world around us has changed only in the past few years.
Then how can we expect someone to not change?
By expecting someone to behave in a certain manner in one year or even few months from today is like trying to stop time itself.
Because as time progresses,
Change is bound to occur.
Then how can a person behave according to our expectations after a few months or years?
They are bound to change.
Their beliefs,
Their interests,
Their preferences,
Their emotions,
Their state of mind,
In fact their whole life will change.
And why should they behave as per our expectations?
Isn't that taking away their freedom of choice from them?
That is why promises are meant to be broken.
Because a lot of things change from the time the promise is made.
No wonder so many people suffer in relationships.
Think about it.
Haven't we ourselves changed over the past years?
Haven't our beliefs,
Interests,
Emotions and preferences changed?
Now if someone would expect us to hold a particular belief or interest or not change our emotions or preferences,
Wouldn't that sound insane to us?
Many people would have expected many things from us.
But did we fulfill all those expectations?
The day we truly accept and embrace change in ourselves and others,
That day we will realize that nobody can hurt us by changing or not keeping a promise or not fulfilling our expectations.
That day we will realize that forgiveness is unnecessary.
So let's summarize the three reasons which make forgiveness unnecessary.
First,
Whatever happens,
No matter how devastating it may seem,
Gives us the opportunity to express our divinity,
Takes our soul forward on the path of its journey and hence is good for us.
Second,
Everyone has a different model of reality and as per their model,
What they do is right.
That is,
Their intention is right.
And third,
Change is inevitable and hence having expectations is against the natural law of existence.
I hope you found value in this talk.
I would love to know your thoughts on this.
My soul loves yours.
Take care and have a wonderful day.
