World Forgiveness Day: The Divine Power Of Forgiving, From Gandhi To Everyday Saints

To err is human, to forgive divine. The more you learn to forgive, the more godlike you become. God is the Ever-free. The ‘f’ of forgiveness is freedom. Forgiveness sets us free from the hurts which otherwise would continue to prick us for as long as our memory lasts.

Within us there is the conflict between love and hate. Love asks to forgive, hatred seeks to get even, to return evil for evil. When love triumphs, I easily forgive the wrong doer. But when hatred has the upper hand, the memory of wrong done to me keeps on burning within me.

On other hand, think of Mahatma Gandhi. He was nearly slain by a fanatic in 1908, when he was in South Africa. Mahatma Gandhi said to his friends, “This man did not know what he was doing. I will love him and win his love!” A year later, the man who wished to kill him, wrote to Mahatma Gandhi, offering his apologies and admiration. This is the magic of forgiveness.

Let me give you an incident which occurred in the life of an ordinary man. He found a boy-thief in his flower garden. Quietly, he came up behind him, caught the boy by his shoulder and said to him, “My boy, tell me which is the best flower in the garden?”

The boy, finding it impossible to escape, looked around and said, “That rose is the best.”

The man, still holding the boy by his shoulder, plucked the rose and handed it over to the boy.

The boy asked, “Aren’t you going to punish me?”

“No,” said the man. “I am not going to punish you. But I am going to trust you that you will never steal from my flower-beds again, will you?”

“Never, Sir, as long as I live,” was the emphatic reply. “But please, Sir, tell me if there is any little thing that I can do for you. I would wish to serve you as long as I live!”

That is the magic of forgiveness. Forgiveness and a token of love had won the hardened heart of the boy and he became a willing servant of the rich man!

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*August 2 is Dada J.P. Vaswani's Birthday and is celebrated as Global Forgiveness Day.

Dada J P Vaswani was a humanitarian, philosopher, educator, acclaimed writer, powerful orator, messiah of ahimsa, and non-sectarian spiritual leader.