Nothing can heal the way forgiveness can

Whenever anger or the now-rare feeling of retribution emerges in my mind, after I hear the news of a brutal crime being committed; my memory and better sense take over and remind me of Gladys Staines – the wife of a Christian missionary in India whose husband and two boys were burnt alive while they slept inside their vehicle. What comes to mind is not that incident, but her wisdom to forgive. Very difficult, so utopian, but a powerful act that is widely misunderstood as a sign of weakness or not understood at all.

In the spate of the vitriol that was being spewed by politicians and their coterie in the 2014 General Elections in India, a well-known politician -- who continuously presents himself to be a fount of wisdom and knowledge -- criticised the daughter of an assassinated prime minister of India for visiting her father’s accused killer in jail. He was referring to a visit she had made some time ago, arising from the desire to come face-to-face with the accused and seen, at that time by many, as a step towards forgiveness.

How easy it is for me to say “wisdom to forgive”, how easy it is to think such lofty thoughts, but so difficult to practice, the reader would think.

I have contemplated a lot on forgiveness, tried to read as much as I could about what enlightened masters have had to say about it, and some years ago, more importantly, I have forgiven a perceived wrongdoing which affected my family most adversely. Yes, I forgave the wrongdoer with great difficulty, but I forgave. Similarly, as in any ordinary life which is rarely faultless, I know I too have been forgiven by others, near and far, numerous times.

But I admit, to forgive is not easy and the willingness to forgive can also depend on the severity of the act. I suppose that it would be easier to forgive a less severe act than a most violent one.

However, the penalty for any wrongdoings are, according to the law of life, for the guilty to bear. There is no escaping. Time eventually catches up and pays. In a spiritual context it is part of “the law of karma” or is encapsulated in the words, “what ye sow, ye shall reap” or simply reflected in the saying “what goes around, comes around.”

On an evening walk some time ago, I passed by a house under construction. One of the workers was hammering a nail into a makeshift door perhaps to be used for their temporary living quarters. As he struck the nail, I wondered how it would feel if a hand accidentally came between the nail and the door. Within seconds my mind thought of the suffering of Jesus the Christ and the two men along with him, when they were crucified according to the laws of those times. In his lifetime, Jesus the Christ had performed many miracles but he chose not to perform one to save himself; nor did he use his powers to bring wrath to those who tortured him. Instead, as his life neared its end on the cross, the divinity of his wisdom made him utter those now-most-famous words, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” Jesus’ enlightened mind saw the life-enhancing and healing power of forgiveness compared to hate and retribution.

Forgiveness works both ways. It is not enough for the repentant to repent and seek forgiveness but it is also very important for the repentant to forgive oneself to enable genuine repentance. For a person filled with guilt, it is equally important to heal, through acts of altruism which have a great impact in the process of one’s reformation.

The character of Jean Valjean in Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables and the Illustrated Classics’ adaptation that I read as a child, showed me how we could undo our mistakes by repenting maturely and engaging in powerful acts of kindness. Four scenes have remained vividly imprinted in my mind from what I read and re-read several times.

Jean Valjean being caught stealing silverware from his host’s house, a Bishop; the Bishop forgiving him and saying that he should have asked if he wanted the silverware; Valjean furrowing beneath a fallen horse carriage and lifting it partially with his body to rescue a person trapped below it; the suicide of Inspector Javert who is unable to come to terms with how he persecuted Valjean; and Valjean dying a fulfilled man with his adopted daughter and her husband by his death bed.

In their book The wisdom of forgiveness, written by His Holiness The Dalai Lama and Victor Chan, His Holiness says, “In my own case, in Tibet, all the destruction, death, all happened. Painful experiences. But revenge….this creates more unhappiness. So, think wider perspective: revenge no good, so forgive. Forgiveness does not mean you just forget about the past. No, you remember the past. Should be aware that these past sufferings happened because of narrow-mindedness on both sides. So now, time passed. We feel more wise, more developed. I think that’s the only way.”

Noted writer and commentator on religion, Karen Armstrong, in her book Twelve steps to a compassionate life says, “During the Vietnam war, Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, performed the meditation on the Immeasurables for the soldiers of this country – but he also contemplated the plight of the American troops, who, he knew, were suffering too, and made himself desire their safety and well-being. Once you realise that your enemy is also suffering, you look into his eyes and see a mirror image of your own distress. In this way, you realise that he too deserves compassion.”

In the recent course of working on this article, two thought-provoking incidents were reported by the world’s media, which brought to attention not just the fact that there are people all over the world who exercise the power of forgiveness, but more importantly, and before that, they exercise the will to forgive.

Minutes before a public hanging in an Iranian town, a mother pardoned her son’s killer in the presence of the convict’s own grieving mother, by removing the noose around his neck but slapping him. This act was captured pictorially and those photographs were widely circulated.

Earlier and in the same month that the Iranian mother’s act of forgiveness was reported; Rwanda remembered the genocide that took place there 20 years ago due to the ethnic violence between the Hutus and the Tutsis. At that time, media reported on how Alice Mukarurinda, whose daughter was killed and whose own arm was hacked in the attacks; had coincidentally met her attacker, Emmanuel Ndayisaba, after many years and during his efforts with other genocide killers to seek forgiveness from victims. Not only did she forgive him after two weeks of thinking and discussing it with her husband, but she now works with Emmanuel as a part of a group building simple brick houses for survivors of the genocide.

Quoting Martin Luther King Jr. in her book, Armstrong says, ‘Only goodness can drive out evil and only love can overcome hate.’  She continues saying, “Loving our enemies means that we have to accept ‘the necessity, over and over again, of forgiving those who inflict evil and injury on us’; King was convinced that this was ‘an absolute necessity for our survival…the key to the solution of the problems of our world’.”

The patterns of life in terms of incidents that beg forgiveness remain the same: as it was at the time of Jesus the Christ and now. Life is not faultless. Faults, horrible acts, violence, occur as life progresses in time.

But it is the power of forgiveness which continues to stand the test of time for its life-enhancing quality and its ability to heal like nothing else can.

Copyright © Tarun Dalaya, 2014