Forgiveness or Just Letting Go – Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Q: I was sexually abused as a little girl. My mother used to hit me. I’m very angry at my parents who are not very sorry. My father is dying now. How do I let go or forgive.

A: Ok, don’t let go or don’t forgive. Who is at a loss? Hold on to it tight. Promise to yourself all my life I will never forget whatever they did. Are you going to be botherred or they are going to be bothered? You forgive someone not for their sake, for you own sake, to save your own mind. Wether you forgive others or not it doesn’t bother them. You not forgiving them will bother you. Do you want to be bothered all your life over a memory of the past? Or do you want to move on?

#ads

When you want to move on, you need to look at things as they are. If someone has done something wrong to you, it is their sheer ignorance. They have never been educated in high knowledge, in spiritual knowledge or human values. They didn’t know how to handle their emotion, feelings and urges. They were in the grip of their urge, they did somethign wrong. You should only have compassion, oh poor fellow, poor thing. And how many millions of people there are on the planet who are in such abuse, who are victims and those who are culprits.

Inside every culprit there is also a victim crying for help. Unfortunately nobody recognises the victim inside the culprit. You have the golden opportunity here to see life from a broader perspective, from a different angle altogether. And see the victim crying for help inside every culprit. Your parents are such victims of ignorance, small mindedness. They are not as fortunate as you are. You have the knowledge to see life from a different light altogether. Isn’t it? You should be compassionate.

Anyone who is happy with lots of joy within will not go and harm somebody else. All those who harm others are dissatisfied. They are seeking for joy or seeking for something. And a victim of their own cravings and aversions, because nobody taught them how to handle their own craving and aversions. So you need to let go.

Again I’m telling you, you need to let go not for their sake but for your own sake. You need to save your mind. Life is like a river, it’s not the same water there all the time.

For more on victimhood please click here.