Forgiveness: From Bitterness to Blissfulness

With the exponential population growth, rapid technological advancement, increasing unemployment along with rat race competition, some of the people find it difficult to keep pace with fast changing life. As a result we find many more people every day are getting engaged in violence in form of road rage, murders, heinous crimes in homes and on streets, towns etc., and domestic abuses and aggression with contagious spread. People keep on suppressing their anger and resentment caused by their day to day activities governed by different kind of pressures of life. That volcano of anger and rage is there inside ready to erupt any time on availability of even a slightest excuse to such extent that It turns out as if we have forgotten how to harness that and forgive.
All the religions teach all of us not to get angry and ask to resort to forgiveness. The more it has been preached, the more we are away from it. Even few of us wish to pardon for the wrongdoings unto us, but are incapable to do so. It is well known fact that anger causes hate and bitterness which coupled with the instinct of taking revenge keep us from forgiving. We fail to forgive because we hold on to resentment too much and it becomes hard for us to let go of the pain and the hurt.
We first need some time and space to let go either to forgive or be forgiven. When anger and resentment ends, the forgiveness starts. First intent to forgive and then acknowledge what had been felt at whatever wrongdoings was done to you. It is important not to let the emotions get bottled up inside you. If it is found comfortable, we can share the feelings with any such person whom we confide in. It helps to give vent to the feelings. Otherwise we can shed the weight of charged feelings by just jotting these down on paper and destroy.
The moment we are prepared and able to forgive, we feel liberated from the experience of bitterness otherwise it deprives us of happiness and peace of mind. Forgiveness marks our freedom from all the negativity we have been nurturing as a result of our unforgiving heart. If someone hurts, we feel pain, anger and resentment but we don’t have to harbour these negative feelings forever. Let go of these feelings. When we forgive them from the bottom of our heart, we find ourselves in zone of inner peace.
In order to realise the power of forgiveness, we need to understand why we should forgive. Forgiving has some intrinsic value to make you see the good rather than the bad. Nobody is ever truly bad. No situation is ever without a brighter side. There is always flip side of the coin. Learning why to forgive makes us to learn how to see positive and beautiful things in life. By forgiving we are actually forgetting the past and creating a whole new experience. When past has no longer hold on to us, we can finally move on. It enables us to heal up and the healing of relationships also happens. What most people are unable to understand is that forgiving does not absolve the offending person of responsibility of his act of hurting nor it justifies his wrongdoing. Forgiving the person does not excuse the act; it just brings about peace and understanding. When you let go the grudges and the bitterness, you free up the hard disc of heart so that tranquillity and peace can come in.
A more helpful question would be how we can better understand to put the situation in proper perspective. It is only compassion who enables us to understand not only each other but the facts and situation also objectively. In the state of compassion we brood over that “we are not perfect and so is the one who hurts us”. It is emotional foundation of compassion, upon which the building of forgiveness erects. Forgiveness is impotent without compassion which is different from attachment and duty. Pure compassion facilitates to bring about paradigm shift in transforming bitterness into blissfulness.
Mindfulness is that process by which we get to look at whole situation afresh and in right perspective. The whole understanding along with catalytic compassion gives rise to the feeling of forgiveness inside us. With the quality of mindfulness, we are always watchful of our thoughts, feelings and activities which in turn give us more understanding and with that come our accessibility to our built-in sense of unconditional compassion. Compassion does not stop us from holding the person accountable for something negative that they may have done. It simply means we understand the root of the problems instead of looking only at surface behaviour. This way we find productive and long term solution which leads us to blissfulness.
By: Kamal Jain(Cosmic Affair)