Why should we forgive others?

By Roma Singhal - 27.11 2015

1. Holding Onto Anger is Like Drinking Poison and Expecting Other to Die!

Don’t we all want to be happy, healthy, content and live with ease? Don’t we all want to lead a life filled with comfort and without any major difficulties, agony or repentance? Don’t we all dream to have no burden on heart and no hatred for anyone? Don’t we all want to earn respect and love from others? If your answers to these questions are in a ‘YES’; then this is exactly why we should forgive others.

2. What is Forgiveness?

Forgiveness is therapeutic. It causes inner healing. Medicines heal our body, but forgiveness heals our soul. There is no medicine, which can heal our soul. Knowingly or unknowingly, we hurt people at different levels. This way, we create a link with them. Nurturing grudges in heart can strengthen these links and if we have hurt someone severely, these links are carried forward to next births as well.

3. Present miseries and past life karma

We will read about a story, which will explain the links carried to next births. There was a young widow in certain village. She had a son, the only child of hers. She somehow survived her husband’s death and got busy in raising her son. One day when her son was 21 years old, a snake bit him and he died. The widow was shattered and couldn’t believe reality and cried for days and days.

4. Present miseries and past life karma

She didn’t let anyone cremate her son’s body. Finally, someone took her to a Saint sitting under the tree in next village. She begged to him to bring back her son to life. The Saint said he could bring her son back to life, ONLY if the son’s soul wanted to come back to her. She was extremely happy and confident that the son would surely return back to her.

5. Present miseries and past life karma

After some moments, the Saint said the soul refused to come back to her. Shocked, the mother wanted to know the reason and Saint said that in previous birth, she was stepmother of this soul. She wanted no one to come in between her and her husband, but the husband loved his son from first wife.

6. Present miseries and past life karma

In order to remove this son from her blissful marital life, she drowned her one-day in well, while bathing him. So, to teach her lesson the hard way, this soul took birth as her own son and died early to let her feel the pain of losing the child.

7. Focus on generating good karma

This story certainly teaches us not to do bad karma and also focuses on the importance of forgiveness, to delink ourselves from people who have hurt us, so that we don’t carry forward this onto our next lives. Some people believe that excessive mental criticism and severe pain given to others can result in devastating situations.

8. Focus on generating good karma

It is believed that some people who burn alive their daughter-in-law for various reasons, have the soul of same daughter-in-law as their own ‘mentally disabled’ child in next birth. This way they learn the lesson the hard way. They hated that soul so much that they burnt her alive and now they have her as their own child, who is mentally disabled and they love her so much that they take care of her every minute need and do not leave her alone even for a single second!

9. Bhishma Pitamah and his ‘Arrow Bed’

We do not remember our past lives, and this is certainly true according to Hindu religion that we reap what we sow. For example, Bhishma Pitamah was laid alive on arrows during Mahabharat war. He asked Krishna that why is he bearing this, though he never did this painful harm to anyone, as he could see back at his last 100 births

10. Bhishma Pitamah and his ‘Arrow Bed’

Lord Krishna smiled and said that he can remember just last 100 births, but in a birth before that, Bhishma chased a snake; in order to save his life, the snake crawled restlessly and got caught in a bush of thorns. He bled badly and was caught in thorns until death. So, Bhishma was reaping the fruits of his past life Karma.

11. How to Forgive

Isn’t this really scary to bear such painful fruits of our past life deeds. Some people wonder why they get so much pain, surprisingly, as they haven’t done anything wrong in this birth. The above stories can clearly explain that our present life misery can be linked to our past life bad karmas. Hence, it is advised that the best thing is to watch our day-to-day karma, try and do good ones.

12. How to Forgive

Also, forgiving those who have hurt us can delink us from those souls- avoiding the chances of meeting them again in next births. Sometimes, just by forgiving from heart can solve mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationship problems up to great extent.

13. How to Forgive

All you have to do is to forgive all those who have hurt you and seek forgiveness from all those, who have been hurt by you in previous lives and this life. You can do this genuinely from heart full of compassion, every morning after you get up and at night before you go to bed. This concept is well followed in Jainism and they ask forgiveness if they have hurt others by words, deeds or thoughts during a festival known as ‘Michhami Dukkadam’.

14. It is in giving that we receive

We all have heard several times that ‘it is in giving that we receive’. Even to inhale a breath in, we have to exhale one out. We can’t just keep inhaling without exhaling. This law of giving and receiving runs in multiplication. Whatever we give to others, it comes back to us in multiplication. A very simple and live example of this principle is a seed-and-tree concept.

15. It is in giving that we receive

If we sow a seed, we obtain fruits in multiplication. If we sow a mango tree, we will get mangoes in multiplication and if we sow a thorn tree, we will get thorns in multiplication. Likewise, if we do good to others, we will get that goodness in multiplication and if we do bad to others, it will come back to us in multiplication as well.

16. It is in giving that we receive

As different fruit trees take different time to bear fruits; some trees start giving fruits in some months while other fruit trees take years to provide fruits; same way different karma take different time cycle to return back to us in multiplication.

17. Giving and Blessing

As we have learnt about the multiplication effect of our karmas, we will certainly want to generate good karmas so that they multiply and return back to us. One of the very simplest ways is to bless everyone (even those who have hurt you) with whatever you want.

18. Giving and Blessing

For instance, if you want love, prosperity and abundance, bless people with love, prosperity and abundance; Wish for them that they may have all these in life. According to ‘law of karma’ you will have all these in abundance. I hope all above examples and stories have let you know the importance of forgiving and blessing. This way we can create so much peace in our lives and help in building world a better place to live!