Let your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven..
Give us today our daily bread..
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sins against us.
Lead us not into temptations, but deliver us from all evil..”
- Bible
This school prayer used to be an integral part of my life..
Having recited it religiously some 200 odd days in a year for more than 10 long years, I had become an immune soul.
Practice makes you perfect!
Sometimes it makes you ignorant.
Now when I tried to remember it..
I struggled!
I could not remember the words.
Therefore I asked for help from a colleague,
an ardent catholic,
and instantly she recited the entire prayer in less than 7 seconds..!
And it reminded me of the parrot within me.
Ask me whom I hate or against whom I hold grudge and I will easily list ALL the names.
But then ask me to name those whom I have caused pain and anguish,
I really have to think hard ..
recollect..
remember..
and walk down memory lanes
may be then I can name a few..
Not that I am a saint and sinless..
I so wish I was..
It’s because I haven’t forgotten anyone who have wronged against me.
And do not bother to know the ones whom I have hurt or caused pain.. though am sure the latter must be a larger number than the ones who have wronged against me.
Let's say:
a) You are my girl, and you dump me for my buddy.. or..
b) You are my Crazy Old Professor and always make life difficult for things out of my understanding.. or..
c) You are my brother and knocked off my tooth during a fight which I always loose.. or..
d) You are my neighbour and you had a squabble over parking in my area even if I don’t even have a two wheeler of my own.. or..
e) You are my childhood friend and you don’t remember my birthday even after hogging desserts every year.. or..
f) You are my boss and you give me the sack when I expected a raise.. or..
g) You are that friend of mine who took away my girl on my birthday..
I call you names..
I keep cursing you..
I keep complaining of how life is unfair..
And I sum it up saying, "I'll never forgive you for that!"
[I do say a lot of other things, rest I have faith in your understanding]
Who suffers?
'a' is having the time of her life with my buddy..
'b' is busy teaching and enlightening whole new batch of idiots like me..
'c' is still busy breaking other people's tooth..
'd' still manages to park his car in my area..
'e' still comes and hogs as if he is in an annual festival where one doesn't remembers the occasion but doesn't forget the food either..
'f' still manages to get the donkey work..
'g'.. I have nothing to say to you...%&*$%^ LOOOSER.. !!!
Surprisingly it’s never You!
And this mystery has always baffled me!
Once all the curses and ill-feelings have not had any effect then helplessly one wishes to forget it and move on..
Even that seems to be impossible!
The reason being..
I am still acting naive..
I am missing something basic.
So it was like I was carrying acid in a container to throw at one who has caused me hurt. And meanwhile I was waiting for the right time, this acid was eating into the container. And this hate was doing more harm to me than it did to the other.
So the sooner this vessel is emptied the better it is!
The phrase is to Forgive and forget..!!
And its something that each one of us have learnt at some point in our lives..
That it is a good idea to forgive people.
We learned that it is "holy" or "spiritual".
Rubbisssshh !
I would have said so..
If I wasn’t miserable..
May be this was why this prayer revisited me..
..Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sins against us..
I was miserable because I have not forgiven.
And today while I write this I am so sure that when we don’t forgive, it ruins our life!
I wonder where one gets the idea that if You don't forgive people, THEY suffer.
Its nuts!
And also to forgive someone, I am not saying one has to agree with what they did.
One just have to want his life to work.
Is it easy?
Usually it’s not.
But its not impossible..All one needs is three things..
Humility..Tolerance.. and Respect/Love for the other person..And this isn't easy..Its even more painful..But once you do it..then the joy and happiness is worth the pain..
So don't forgive people for their benefit.
Do it for your benefit..!!
And if your life is joyful and blissful then you are reading nonsense..!!
But if you are hurt and in pain..
Then this might have something to offer..something to ponder and act upon..
With this piece of wisdom I wish to ask forgiveness from all those against who I have wronged.
- An apologetic soul..
5 comments:
I forgive you for all the sins committed against me.. For not remembering my birthday.. N blah blah blah (I dint get any other reason :) ). This blog reminde me that am not the only one who goes through these odd and sometimes dumb emotions.. True, like parrots we used to recite this prayer in the morning and another short one in the afternoon (I dont remember that one btw). But if you ask have we really followed it.. I really doubt it.. I know all those " a,b,c" people have hurt all of us in different ways but just ask a simple question to yourself.. "Are you gonna die without them" or "is your world coming to end because of that" Life wud b much simpler then i guess. (Easy to preach, hard to follow ;))
All sins forgiven, chetta :) True...one needs to forgive & forget...but I feel, its hard to forget & sometimes u dnt need to, its jst dat u need to channel ur anger, grief in a positive way. Where things go worng is when people sustain the feeling & let it grow..coz watever's happened has happened, ur crying or harming the responsible person is not going to right the wrong. So, forget the incidence, remember the lesson & move ahead.
this is sooo true...and yet so difficult to follow...
well, there's something a really wise man had once said to me....
"forgive, but never forget. one, because forgetting takes the value out of the act of forgiving (for people who care for the spiritual side of forgiveness) and second, because, nothing in life happens for you to forget. there is no point in forgeting. forgive definitely but keep it in your memory; it makes a good reference book for future decissions.
if we were meant to forget after forgiving, we would have had the memory of a goldfish......."
dont you think so?
-mili
Mihir, Mili thanks for sharing your thoughts.
It surely added on to my understanding..
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