Assalam-u-alaikum All,
There is something that I wanted to share with all of you. Now I know there is an enormouse ref. material that we find in Quran and hadith that I could refer but I sort of avoided that because there are much more learned people here e.g Hamza81 and many others who have posted and are posting such precious essays. And also because I wanted to write about the selfish reasons that sometimes stimulate us more than values, morals religeouse teachings to do things for the sake of doing right. Though All that Islam emphesizes is just to benefit us, the one who believes and the one who performs that act and in this context it is the one that forgives others.
Forgiveness has been emphasized repeatedly in different contexts in Islam. This is one of Allah Subahana-hu Ta-ala’s attributes and virtues as He is Al-Rauf, Al-Ghaffar, Al-Ghafoor, and Sattar-ul-Ayoob; He is The Forgiver. It is one of His qualities and He likes all the Muslims to practice this quality as much as they can.
As we do not know about the wonders it holds and the pleasures and progress it can lead us towards, we take it for granted. We always think as if it is for others good. We tend to believe that we are getting nothing out of it but the thawab (though thawab in itself is such a big thing in both ways, in this life and the life in hereafter), which we will be presented on the Day of Judgment. Well, if we think a little bit wisely and analyze systematically we would come to know that it is in fact for our own good that we should forgive or at least try to forgive no matter how great the damage that we suffered was and how hard it is to forgive. Because the more difficult it seems, the more enslaved, limited and deprived we are.
Then if we look from the reward and punishment view, everyone who has wronged you would get some effect and would be dealt almost closer to the way he/she made you feel. In the same way if we have wronged someone, there would be a time when we definitely would have to taste the fruit of our deeds, not only in hereafter but also here in this very world of ours. So if someone wronged me, later in some time, he is been wronged and then the person who wronged him would suffer at someone else’s hand. You see it’s a chain of suffering, hurt and sadness. Please take the courage to break this chain. Forgive and pray that may Allah Subahana-hu Ta-ala bless that person who has hurt you and guide him to the righteousness and that may they never have to feel the pain or humiliation or distrust that you had to go through. So tell yourself whatever it was and who so ever is responsible for what happened, it does not exist any more
To tell the truth, we all wish to be happy, successful and confident of the achievements we aspire or we have had in past. But somehow there seems to be great difference in what we wish to do and what we actually do. Because when it comes to reality we choose to be sad and miserable. As a matter of fact it is a pity that we keep holding on to the sad memories of past, unpleasant experiences of failure and wrong decisions, feelings of betrayal and agony. All this garbage that we keep so safe and dear to ourselves that we review and revisit it as often as possible, consumes all of our good energy and fills the created vacuum with doubt and despair. We feel lost, stuck and bound in our powers, skills, abilities and ultimately we define our limits as to what we can have or do or what happenings can occur in our life and what cannot. These limits, which when once drawn, for the whole life determine our possibilities and impossibilities in life, our allowance on all the physical and non-physical levels. And these are the limits that were never there until we drew them.
In fact we draw some of these limits in very early years of our life. We try something for the first time and if we fail, in our mind we announce that we are not good enough to do that or have that. We from that moment onwards make a decision that we do not deserve. Now most of the times we forget that very first time of decision making as it gets buried deep in the memories but the decision becomes an active rule that always works so automatically and unconsciously without effort, without our known knowledge that we almost never escape it.
So if we desire to have all of our energy available to us, we have to unplug these unnecessary power-consuming programs. No one from outside can free us of these chains and limitations but us. We have to unbind and release ourselves so that we can save the energy we consume on nurturing that grudge against others, or thinking about the bad things giving the Universe a negative picture of the possibilities available to us. These grudges that we keep in our heart and the feelings of anger, sadness, humiliation or acute pain etc are already a punishment. What is already done is done. The people against whom we need to forgive might not even know or remember how terribly we feel. Isn’t it a pity that we punish ourselves so ruthlessly and cruelly? We need to forgive ourselves if we truly wish for peace. And when we forgive others we in fact forgive ourselves. This is the best thing that we can gift ourselves to get released of all those negative burdens. We were the ones who suffered when it happened for the first time and we are the ones who are suffering it constantly since then. This should be stopped immediately. We need to let bygones be bygones and give ourselves a break.
Now, this is not an easy task because it has developed in our system to think and store memories in that specific way. We might have to argue a lot within ourselves as a part of us feels hurt and thinks these can be erased only when once equalled by avenging. A part of us feels it very shameless to forgive and behave as if nothing happened because it had happened and it hurt its ego. We come across many more reasons every next time that make it difficult to forgive. But instead of being carried away by this illusion of solution, it is time to think deeply and realize that we had that pain, humiliation, grief or failure once and at that time already it had hurt us a lot. Since then it has been hurting us which is a considerably long time. Now, we need to stop and ask ourselves a question. Do we want to suffer for whole of our life? How long we are going to burden ourselves with that baggage which keeps on growing consuming our energy and us consequently? How long we have to burn in this blazing fire of hatred, resentment and unhappiness? Is it worthwhile to live a sad, humiliated, unpleasant single moment that has already passed millions a time, imagining it being real when it is not? We need to remind ourselves that it is already dead and buried in our past.
It would seem very difficult but when once tried, we would like to keep on doing that. It is always at first and it might be the time when we should establish a new system or perhaps strengthen the previously installed delicate system of forgiveness. Only the experiment would tell how peaceful and happy it is otherwise. Just a single act of forgiveness magically transforms us and we become so released and relaxed that it feels that we are in a whole new world. It makes us able to be positive, be open, open to love, respect, prosperity, happiness and what not. Remember world is what we think of it, we are and we get what we think of ourselves and of our allowance, so make it a habit to think of all the blessings and erase by forgiving all the mishaps.
Now some of us might think it is not wise that we just forgive every one as there are things done which are really very hard to forgive and besides we need to remember them so that we might not get hurt in future again. Well, I agree to some extent. When I say forgive others, I don’t say forget what they are capable of. Try to remove those emotions and feeling which hurt you when you met them or see them. It was their action and let them be responsible. Do not be a victim anymore. When you meet those who are with this label of a previous mistreatment, then again do not presuppose that they are still the same, give them a chance and be careful on your part. They might have changed or it might have been a misunderstanding or mistake previously. They might also be sorry for what happened. Gradually they may win your trust again. Take yourself out of this situation, so that even when you remember, you don’t feel the agony, the anger, resentment or humiliation. Whenever you are reminded of any such incident, tell yourself that it was back in your past and you are not that person anymore and you are just watching it in your mind. It is all your imagination; a recorded film may be which runs in your memory but you are the one who is out of that situation. You have come a long way in life and it’s all over now. Always remember memories are just memories, they are not real unless you feel them to be real by being present in that time.
Another thing to remember is that we cannot forgive others unless and until we have forgiven ourselves. So one should start from self-forgiving for all the bad times, bad experiences, and the decisions that were not very wise and didn’t work.
Content taken from the book" Divine System Restoration"
Chapter 35 Forgiveness
There are some events planned for some specific issues here, please visit.
www.divinesystemrestoration.co.uk
Please leave your feed back when ou visit.