Forgiving others is
actually very selfish and full of egotism.Want to know why?
Who Is A Forgiver?
Well firstly who can
forgive?Only they can forgive who have been wronged,that is they are victim to
some wrongdoing.So the genesis of forgiveness is rooted in being wronged in the
first place.Now any body who has been wronged is working from a perception of
being wronged.Perceptions,mind you, can be very ambiguous.We may not have been
wronged at all ,and yet we may obstinately insist that we have been wronged.
The Victim’s Role
So the victim ,here
,must have an upper hand in the first place to begin with.Otherwise what,or who is
there to forgive,if one has not been wronged at all?
Now the moment you have
an upper hand ,because of being a victim, you have unwittingly walked in to the
domain of ego.You have subtly admitted to someone(the wrongdoer) being morally on lower
pedestal than you.That is why you can now look down upon them and consider “forgiveness”.Oh
so great a human being am I to be forgiving that( bum) XYZ.Oh let me forgive
their sins(as if I am myself bereft of the sinning proclivity).
Vain Aspiration
This is the first step
on the staircase of vanity.So you see this entire story of forgiveness is
founded on a lot of candy fluff.We are deluded if we thing we are being great
by forgiving.In fact ,this may shock you,the truth is that your great sentiment
of forgiveness is very misleading, and loaded with the vain endeavour to heap obligation on
another .Essentially if you have the guts to face the truth you can stop in your
tracks and ask yourself whether you are so great as to forgive another person.If
you think so then please also question where is the motive of forgiveness
arising from,if not from the ego?
Now I know this concept may be
perfect recipe for indigestion.Whoever heard of the forgiver being egocentric.How can forgiving be wrong??Dont all scriptures teach
forgiveness?Well I guess the authors of all scriptures knew that human beings
had a fundamental weakness.The ego.And by asking you to forgive they were only offering you a diluted alternative to the true sentiment of forgiveness….that
of “giving for” others.
Amnesia Is The Best Forgiveness
Giving for others is authentic only if it is
selfless .Selflessness does not bank upon obligation.It is absolute selflessness.Therefore
my friends,true forgiveness is complete amnesia.It is complete forgetfulness of the
others’ omissions or commissions .No one is wronged and no one the wrongdoer.That
is the true essence of forgiveness.
The narrow sense of
forgiveness,as is,commonly understood is actually very egoistic.So if you
really want to be noble,and kind it is better to forget something that happened completely than to
indulge in the sham of forgiveness.
Wonder what you really think about the practice of forgiveness in it's truest sense.
4 comments:
Hi Mona
Thought I would check out this post. Not so sure I am going to agree with you on this. I invite you to check out my post and the comments on this subject. "The Healing Power of Forgiveness"
My first memories of my father was being sexual molested. What this does to a child is destroy their self esteem. It gives them zero confidence in themselves and they may not always make the wisest choices. They also think that when things go wrong they should apologize for everything even if they were not to blame. They become easy targets for abuse. Having lived it I know.
Amnesia is like shoving it under the rug. Families don't heal if it is ignored, the abuse has to stop somewhere.
Forgiving is not about ego, it is about healing the victim only. There was this woman that had been molested as a child and when her son was molested she flipped out. The molester was in court and she took a gun and shot him. After spending time in jail she eventually got cancer and died. So her not forgiving was stupid, the court was going to sentence the man. Now her son has no mother.
Mary
Hi Mary,
I'm glad that you took out time to check out this post.
I appreciate your criticism and I have to confess that in the literal sense this post it is not at all intended for people who have been acutely traumatized by someone.
having said that i would request you to read the first bullet again..about perceptions being ambiguous.
Of course, in your personal case there is no perceptual ambiguity;only hard facts.
Yet i would appreciate it if the sentiment underlying the concept of forgiveness is understood holistically.
The post is not espousing non forgiveness,but it is asking us to forgive completely.And true forgiveness is complete only when the unpleasant act is forgotten for ever, after the commonly advocated ritual of pardoning someone is done with.Hence the reference to "amnesia" as a simile,and not amnesia as a neuro-psychological phenomena of repressing unpleasant memory.That is even more harmful;i agree with you on that.
Either way ,i am grateful to you for helping me realise that things could be misunderstood by the way they are phrased.
While i respect your viewpoint I hope the context of the post is clear.
Regards n thanks
Mona
Mona, glad to find your blog and your take on forgiveness. I wrote a post on forgiveness to which suggested forgiveness for ourselves instead of for the sake of others. I can see the limitation that you point out with forgiveness. Forgiveness only maybe an ego-based act, forgetting completely is a selfless one.
the only reason not to have complete amnesia is to be able to learn from the experience and the person so we'll more careful in life, more observant if someone is going to violate our trust again in the future. what do you think?
Hi Vishnu
Welcome to my blog.
I appreciate your concept on forgiveness,particularly about the personal forgiveness part.Forgiving ourselves and not feeling guilty is a crucial first step to learning forgiveness holistically.
I'm glad you also have expressed your frank views on the amnesia aspect.All i can say is that 'amnesia' in this context is referring to forgetting the wrongdoing completely AFTER the pardoning is over from your side.Amnesia is not to replace forgiveness.Also there is no need to hold on to previous memory only for the purpose of guarding ourselves from possible hurt in future.Im sure there is higher consciousness to take care of a lot more good for us.
Thanks a lot
Mona
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