It is possibly true for all of us that we have all been, at
sometime or the other, let down by people whom we trusted and loved deeply. It
will always numbing to discover such a let-down. You will feel beaten and
betrayed. The after-taste of the episode will continue to haunt you for a long,
long time. At all such times, remember this: People do what they do because
they think they are right in doing it that way. So, there’s no point in either talking
sense to them in such a time that they are gripped by their own stupor or in
grieving over their behavior. The best approach is to take the one that Jesus
took on the Cross – “Forgive them O! Lord, because they know not, what they do!”
You will perhaps argue that this is easier said than done.
How can anyone move on when the heart aches, when the mind is lamenting why such
a thing has happened in the first place? How can anyone forgive when in grief
and when still mourning the betrayal?
I have learned that it is fine to be a fool sometimes in
Life. A fool is one who doesn’t know anything. He or she is not worldy-wise.
So, he or she, will continue to trust despite the evidence pointing to the contrary.
The fact that you stand betrayed points to your having been a fool. So, simple.
Continue being a fool. If you find forgiveness difficult, just continue being trusting
and vulnerable. A few more times people will continue to hurt you. But they
will soon give up when they realize that you are refusing to get hurt. People
love, in a sadistic sense, to see that their actions, in this case negatively, impact
their target audience. When you subtly, through your, even if feigned,
foolishness, deny them that pleasure, they will cease to persist with their
designs.
The other case for ‘moving on’ and not ‘retaliating’ is that
the world is already divided. By several zillion factors. If it is a close
friend or relation, perhaps from the family, that has let you down, your
sulking or wanting to avenge, is only going to divide your already fractured
world further. It is only going to make the distances between you both grown
wider, and often, render them unbridgeable. It takes two hands to clap. Suppose
you don’t offer yours, there will be no thunder. And hence no issue. Or at
least a complicated situation will not get further confounded with your
participation.
Here’s an interesting story that came my way yesterday.
"In the forest there is a
banana plant with its smooth wide leaves next to the thorny berry tree. The
wind causes both to dance and to sway. The thorns of the berry tree rip the
leaves of the banana plant.
Who is to be blamed? The wind for causing them to sway?
Or the banana for growing close to the berry tree?
Or the berry tree for having thorns?
The sage wonders and realizes that if he did not exist,
these notions of who to blame would not exist. Only humans blame and begrudge
and resent, because we can imagine an alternate reality.
The rest of Nature go about their own business."
So, let go. Go about your own
business as if nothing’s happened. In a betrayal, as in any other situation
involving pain, you suffer only because you choose to. Choose instead to be a
fool and go on trusting or choose to believe as if you do not exist. Only when
you partner in the act of betrayal with your grief, is there suffering. Know
that there is no alternate reality. It is what it is. This the only way you can
be happy, and untouched, in the wake of the pain that follows such let-downs!
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