Forgivess is a Choice - Difficult But Worthy....

In The Book of Forgiving, the author Desmond Tutu asks the reader to hold a stone big enough to fit your palm for six hours. It is to be held in the non-dominant hand for the allotted time while the reader does the work he usually does at that time. The author then asks us to note down a few things in a journal. Things like what one felt while holding the stone, whether certain actions were difficult to perform while holding the stone and whether the stone became one with the 'unforgiven hurt' that one carried in his heart.

I did not actually perform the said exercise but imagined myself holding it and facing difficulty in performing the daily activities I am wont to. I realized at once how crippling an effect it had on my mind. I could think of nothing else but the stone. I could not perform even in my imagination, a single act.

And that was the point the author was trying to make in his book too. When we hold on to our hurts, and our grudges, we are disabled. We are paralyzed. We are contained in a prison, so to say. 

Forgiveness is not easy to come by. Yes, Jesus is an epitome of forgiveness. In history, we have the supreme example of Mandela forgiving the wrongs done to him and his nation. But to be able to forgive, or to seek forgiveness requires tons of strength - mental strength. To be able to let go of the humiliation, and the pain one or one's loved one has been through is no mean task. 

Forgiveness does not mean forgetting. Desmond Tutu explains in his book that to be able to forgive, one has to live through the pain by articulating it, by accepting it. For not doing that can never lead to the path of liberation. True freedom from grudges can only come when one has accepted the hurt given or suffered. 

In everyday life, every single human being feels hurt when trust is broken, when expectations are  not met, or when some injustice befalls him or on the people he cares for. Friendships die, relationships loose their warmth. If we had the courage to speak up what hurt us the most, if instead of trying to brush a person aside from our life, we were able to confront that person, then forgiveness would be everywhere. But we don't do that. Not all of us are able to do that. We are trapped in our self-made prison of bruises. But letting that person go from our life never lets that person out of our mind. And therein lies the pain that we repeatedly inflict upon ourselves, reliving the moment of injustice again and again. It is not easy to forgive, for we have our egos to satisfy. We fail to see from any perspective other than our own. And we do not forgive.

But if we do, we leave behind us the agony and the torment of injustice. We refuse to become puppets of vengeance. If we seek forgiveness, which is a gargantuan task, we let go of our egos. We enfeeble our demonic thoughts of narcissism. We exhaust the beasts of hatred and revenge. We refuse to enter the vicious circle of blows and counterblows. We nip them in the bud.

The way we respond, the way we react decides what happens to us. 

In Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's The Palace of Illusions, the protagonist Draupadi is besieged by thoughts like these when she witnesses the devastation around her. She has been the one to bring it all about, she realizes. But who wins. Does the one who win the war emerge truly victorious? As she watches in horror the way warriors on both sides fall, she understands, a bit too late that "the chariot of vengeance" requires "no horses or wheels". It feeds only on hatred, and ego.

Choices and responses define us. Forgiveness is a choice we all have, whether we are seeking it or granting it. And although it is a difficult choice, it is all that takes to make life worthwhile.

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Written for IndiSpire 124