Each year many cultures around the world celebrate a day of forgiveness, a day when you ask people around you, those you know and those you don’t, to forgive you.
As individuals, we sometimes feel that we have nothing wrong, yet the other person believes that some injustice has been done. If the other perceives us as the cause for their pain or suffering, it is wise for us to ask for their forgiveness. Intentionally or unintentionally, if you have hurt someone by your thought, word, or deed - you ask that they forgive you.
Being able to forgive shows one’s strength. You are taking responsibility for clearing up some conflict that has happened in the past, and bringing harmony in its place. The respect that you gain by your compassion, by your broadmindedness, cannot be lost.
We do not plan our own mistakes. Most of them stem from a lack of awareness. If you do not plan your mistakes, what makes you think that the other person plans their mistakes? All mistakes are made out of either a lack of awareness or ignorance. When we do not have compassion for someone when they make a mistake and forgive them, then we will seek revenge. We then become bound to a cycle of negative feelings. Forgiveness shields and protects our mind and spirit from being violent.
Have compassion for those who have hurt you. When you think of forgiving, you normally think of someone as a culprit and you see an intention behind the culprit’s mistake. When you are compassionate you recognize the ignorance behind the person’s mistake. Compassion is even better than forgiveness. In forgiveness, you see an intention behind a mistake, but in compassion you go a step further and look into the person’s heart, beyond their words, beyond their behaviour, and see the wound in the person that caused them to make the mistake. When there is a wound inside individuals, they will try to share it with other people. What else can they do?
Let us all find some way to celebrate a day of Forgiveness. Let us ask forgiveness from the whole universe. Then there will be less hatred, less jealousy, less pain in the world, and we can live together as one family.
