Saturday, July 23, 2011

On Forgiving

The other night at dinner, Sushi our dog was begging our maid for food. The maid gave her food. However Sravanthi got really angry with Sushi and gave her a shouting. Sushi slinked away and hid. But Sravanthi couldnt handle this and called her back, gave her ice cream, petted her and then continued her dinner.

I observed that when a pet or an animal does something we dont want them to do, we do rebuke them but we forget it as fast. In fact it stays with us only as fond memories. However when a human in a relationship with us, does something we dont like, we hold it against them for a long time. We seem to have forgotten, but if you observe these instances keep coming up as flashes in our memory. Why is this? The common factor between both interactions is me, myself. So why cant I treat the human "mistakes" just like that, drop them and move on?

I have known people to not talk to each other for years. People may change but the issues linger on.

Our guruji explained this quite well; When our pet does any "mistake" even repeatedly, we internally understand that its not a deliberate act of malice towards me or my family, its unconscious. We can correct this by training, but that doesnt make it a conscious response, it only makes it a conditioned response.

When a human repeatedly performs the same "mistake", we feel its a deliberate act. Its also to be noted that most actions by humans are out of habit (conditioned actions). But our feeling is that "this person is not able to get it". We probably need to understand and observe that most actions by most humans are as unconscious and as conditioned, as a pets. Additionally, the focus cannot be on the other, it has to be on self. The other is my mirror image.

By holding on, we are harming ourselves more.

2 comments:

fosspro@yahoo.com said...

we might understand the behavior of dogs.because we like dogs. if you don't like it, what would be the answer? we hate it every time we confront him. that's all. when it comes to human behavior, we feel good as bad and bad as good. even though we're well educated in reputed colleges and prominent symbols in society, we sometimes commit a mistake that somebody can't be recovered at any cost. [SUPPOSE-NOT YOU] if you come to know the fact that you've committed a serious mistake, can you forgive yourself? or can you let him whom you've ruined be recovered in any way? SPEAKING IS VERY EASY. BEING PRACTICAL IS VERY HARD. we should know the fact that we're all prone to commit biggest blunders in life. at last still forgiving/being forgiven............
FORGIVING/being forgiven............is a cyclic process.

fosspro@yahoo.com said...

Restoring a person whom you've ruined /damaged his reputation as usual is not possible. you can't restore any thing as usual. if you can't restore any thing as before, you don't have a right to ruin/damage it or anything that you could do. so be frank with your motives. if your motives are wrong, you can ruin/ damage anybody, even his reputation.