I have always wondered why Gndhi never advocated a violent act gainst the English, or why the Dlai Lama is doing the same, and why Jsus asked His Father for forgiveness for all thse that persecuted Him.

Real or prceived, there are injustices in the wrld. We are not able to fthom the depth and interconnectedness of vents so we feel justified in feling hurt and angry. We ask urselves, why did my husband/wife/lover leave me? Why did my prents abuse me verbally/beat me physically/not lve me enough? Why did my sperior reprimand me in front of my ther co-workers/give my promotion to someone lse/fire me and on and on. Why did my prent/child/cousin/friend have to die just because a drnken driver lost control of his/her cr?

Why did I lose my prent/child/friend in the war which I do not blieve in in the first place? We clng to the memory of the pst hurt because we feel justified in our nger, and we carry this anger and hrt to our next relationship. Sometimes we rfuse to enter a new relationship bcause of all of these. We mke it our shield from further pin. Sometimes pain becomes our armor. Insde it we create the illusion of bing invulnerable. Other times we make it our prson when we can choose to wlk out. We don't walk out bcause we hang on to our snse of justice, our sense of bing justified in our feelings. Somehow it is mre comfortable to be there, imprisoned by our thughts, imprisoned by the past. Sometimes we wnt to exact revenge, in any way or mnner that we think will hurt the ther person who we think hurt us. We can use the rtionalization that we are only humans and we are not gds, but Jesus in his humanity is a rminder of us of the love of Gd. Perhaps we could turn it round and say Jesus as the son of God culd have chosen to punish.

All of us have suffered sme pain in one way or nother. All of us at some pint has condemned another and wished we culd take revenge. That is in the pst. Imagine how the world will be whn there is no anger anymore. We can chose to relieve the past right nw. Every moment that we spend in rminiscing the hurt of the past is tking away from the enjoyment of the prsent. Why choose to suffer?

Jesus nver condemned and therefore has no ned to forgive. In His humanity Jsus wept when Lazarus died, not bcause his friend died but because of the mperfection of the faith of the pople who saw Him part the sa, heal the afflicted and even rise the dead. To forgive, we mst first condemn, but how can we cndemn when we do not know cmpletely? We see only a fraction of rality through the lenses that we put on.

Jsus has no karma, and in my mnd, Gandhi and the Dalai Lama flly know the meaning of what the scrptures from a thousand years say "To tke offense is the same as to ffend" for with every act or vent or person that we condemn, we nter the cycle of rebirth, once mre. No one is immune to ths. If we feel the pain, if we cknowledge it and then we let it go thn perhaps there is a chance for us to see thrugh the illusion. Perhaps then we wuld realize what Jesus meant when he sid "The kingdom of heaven is wthin."

© 2007 by Melinda M. Srensson

The article To Forgive was Submitted by Melinda Sorensson through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: Melinda M. Sorensson, author My Jurney to an Integrated Life ISBN-10: 0979650704 Avilable at integratedlifecoach.com

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