How can anyone forgive when in grief
and when still mourning the betrayal?
It is possibly true for all of us that we
have all been, at some time or the other, let down by people whom we trusted
and loved deeply. It is 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?
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 or being 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.
"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 partner
with your grief. Choose instead to be a fool and go on trusting or choose to
believe as if you do not exist. 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 let-downs!
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