Forgive and Forget ...

I have heard people saying "Forget and Forgive ..", but in my opinion it should be changed to "Forgive and Forget ..", because unless we forgive it is really difficult to forget.

Questions against "Forgive and Forget ..."

• Does it mean that we should keep on forgiving the people and forgetting the things, inspite of what they have done to us ??
• Isn't it difficult to forget those past insults and pieces of muds which were thrown at us without any reason ??
• Won't we be considered a coward by those people who are responsible for the past insults if we forgive them without showing any kind of anger ??
• Aren't we encouraging the people by forgiving and forgetting to repeat the wrong things which they have already done ??
  
• Are we trying to hide our cowardness by saying we "Forgive and Forget .." ??
• Won't it decrease the feeling of competition or to win ?? or won't it hurdle our growth ?? if we keep on forgetting the things and keep on forgiving the people ..

Why people are reluctant to Forgive and Forget ..

If i ask you a question that what will give you more relief, a bombarding revenge or forgiveness, then i am sure that i am gonna have the first option ticked by most of the people. OK then lets analyze, why people feel hurt and are reluctant to forgive and forget ....

• I expected "this" from freinds but they did not do that ...
• He ignored me, he did not talk to me nicely, he abused me, he insulted me ..
• I trusted him too much and let him know my strenghts and weaknesses but instead of being my good freind he exploited those weaknesses and made use of my strenghts...
• He is very cunning and can't forgive and forget his cunningness...
• There are people who are inherently evil, and they are despicable. No forgetting will ever change that.
• Don't cross me and i won't cross you, but ifyou do cross me then watch out !!
• You do not deserve any kindness, compassion or forgiveness for what you have done to me. I will see to it that you never ablr to forget it.
  
• I resent everyone who has hurt me, and I beIieve that this makes me a stronger person so that I will not be hurt again.
  
• Anyone who could treat another person that way is undeserving of being forgiven, loved, or cared for.

Meaning of "Forgive and Forget..."

I remember one statement given by Bheeshm in Mahabharath, "Daya usi ko dikhaali chaahiye jismein dand dene ki shakti ho ..". Now if we consider this statement then two situation arises, if you are capable enough and are in condition to take revenge of all your past insults and contadictions and still if you are forgiving then that is an act of patience or an act of maintaing peach because you don't want to increase your tensions and myseries by indulging in those activities, but if you are not capable enough or are not in condition to take revenge of your past insults, if then you are forgiving then that would be a kind of compromise with the situation. Nowdays when everybody is well capable so there is no point of capability and uncapability, it means everybody is capable of taking his/her revenge, but is it really good to burn in the feeling of revenge ?? So if we forgive and forget then, we can say that we are being selfish by forgiving ...

Forgiveness if a selfish act but it gives immence benefit to the person who forgives.

Yes its true, for all who forgive. Instead of burning in the feeling of revenge which is gonna be a hurdle in your future endeavours, its better to forgive. But is it really possible ?? Suppose you have forgiven a person for whatever he has done to you, but if you get a chance in future to take your revenge then will you let that chance go ??? Forgiveness doesn't mean just suspension of the feeling of revenge for some time or till the time you get a good chance to take yout revenge. We are not ROBOTS who can pre-empt any process which is consumig a lot of resources till the time when it is needed. If we have feeling of revenge then that is really gonna consume a lot of enery. Forgiveness means to really forgive, to love that person again whom you are forgiving and to forget whatever he did. Unless you forgive you can not forget, and if you don't forget then those past wounds will remain fresh and will keep on consuming a lot of energy, and the feeling of revenge will remain alive which will disturb you, and that resentment will make your life miserable, and due to those feelings you can not concentrate on your goals which will lead of the failure in all then future endeavours. The ultimate aim of man's life is personal and spiritual growth. If we let our past wounds consume our energy and keep on increasing our malencholes then we can not grow. Those who don't forget keep on taking the poison of revenge and expect others to die, and others keep on living their lives happily.

If you want to love everyone, then you should learn to forgive.

HEALTHY love relationships are not possible without forgiveness!. It is really very difficult to live with any kind of defilement in your mind for anybody. Love is the solution of all the problems.

Simply identify the situation to be forgiven and ask yourself: "Am I willing to waste my energy further on this matter?" If the answer is "No," then that's it! All is forgiven.

Forgiveness is an act of the imagination. It dares you to imagine a better future, one that is based on the blessed possibility that your hurt will not be the final word on the matter. It challenges you to give up your destructive thoughts about the situation and to believe in the possibility of a better future. It builds confidence that you can survive the pain and grow from it.

When you feel that forgiveness is necessary, do not forgive for "their" sake. Do it for yourself! It would be great if they would come to you and ask forgiveness but you must accept the fact that some people will never do that. That is their choice. Don't ever expect them to come to you and ask for forgiveness.

To forgive means to "give up", to let go. It also means to restore oneself to basic goodness and health. When we forgive, we are willing to give up resentment, revenge and obsession. We are willing to restore faith not only in ourselves, but in life itself. The inability or unwillingness to do this, causes harm in the one who is holding onto the anger.

Sometimes we feel hurt because of our Expectaions and our Ego, like "He is did not talk to me nicely ...", "He did not behave accoring to my expectations...", "he abused me ...", "He insulted me .." .. etc. In my opinion if you feel hurt because of these things then you are vulnerable to others, its very easy for others to hurt you. Think again who is responsible for your hurt in such kind of cases ?? Its very easy to blame others for your unnessecary ego and expectations. Is it really good to expect something from someone or is it really good to have Ego ?? Ok its really not pacticle to have no ego and no Expectations from anyone, but can't we try to control it ??

Always Remember : There is nothing so bad that cannot be forgiven. Nothing !

What happens due to lack of forgiveness :-

• Continuously being hurt with pain and suffering going unresolved.
• Unresolved guilt and remorse for offenses committed.
• Chronically seeking revenge and paybacks from one another.
• Being caught up in unresolved anger and bitterness.
• Defensive, self-protective, and distant behavior.
• Blaming, negative and non-growth oriented behavior.
• Being stuck in a battlefield stockpiled for future offensive attacks.
• Being lost in a festering wound that never realizes the revitalization of healing.
• Secretive and non-communicative behavior.
• Fear over making a mistake or of having the mistake revealed.
• Being overwhelmed by fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of non-approval, low self-esteem, fear of conflict.
• High stress.
• Lack of trust, and due to lack of trust you feel alone, none seems to you yours.

UnEXamined life is not worth living

UnExamined life, as the phrase itself says, it means the life without analysis, without observing what we are doing, what we have done, and without knowing what we are going to do. This life may be considered as the life of a dead body or zombie, which is only driven by whatever the situation dictates, and such kind of people succumbs to the surrounding circumstances.

Analysis and intro inspection are the two most important parts of life. He who does not remember the past is condemned to repeat it. In my opinion the purpose of human life is personal and spiritual growth, we are unable to grow toward greater understanding of our true nature unless we take time to examine and reflect upon our life.

Examining our life reveals patterns of behavior. Deeper contemplation yields understanding of the subconscious programming, the powerful mental software that runs our life. Unless we become aware of these patterns, much of our life is unconscious repetition.

We all have blind spots. Sometimes when I examine a chronic problem in my life, I have that unsettling feeling that I must be missing something, but I can't quite see what it is. We try to examine ourselves, but none of us can see our own back side (our "shadow"). That's why Socrates' method of self-examination included an essential element that became known as "Socratic" dialogue. Dialoguing with a close friend, a spouse, a skilled psychotherapist or spiritual adviser helps reveal those blind spots we cannot see by ourselves.

Self verification or intro inspection are very important part of life, for example i am used to go markets frequently and i spend money without any kind of accounts how much i am spending. It happened many times that after spending too much money i repented, but due to lack of self examination i did not try second time to reduce my extravagant expenses and i again repented. Due to self examination we do the same mistake again.

There is one more example; this is related to my academics. I had a low CGPA in my first year, and this is still the same, this is just because of lack of self examination. I did not try to examine the mistakes which i did and kept on doing the same, in next semesters too, and that is the only reason for my LOW CGPA.

Generally as far as i have seen Emotion driven people have great tendencies to be driven by whatever the surrounding circumstances and situation dictates. Once they do something and they are more prone to do the things (mistakes ) which they have already done, if the same kind of surrounding or circumstances repeats. Generally these kind of people succumbs to the surrounding circumstances and conditions very easily that’s why they repeat the mistakes. On the other hand reason driven people generally try to analyze the reasons for the failure in their endeavors and try to refrain themselves from those things. In this way they do not succumb to the surrounding circumstances and conditions but they fight against them and try to manipulate the surrounding conditions in their favor.

Man the great creation of GOD has abundant amount of energy. We use a very less percentage of that energy in our growth and development. If we keep on repeating the mistakes which we have already done in our life previously then most of our energy will be wasted in bearing the results of those mistakes. A man is like a powerful missile, but if there is a lack of self examination then it will something like a missile with no target fixed , so it will keep of going a wrong way and will waste its energy in some wrong direction.

Yes its true, that is it sometimes difficult to preplan the things for future and then to follow them, but if we recognize the black spots of our previous life and try to refrain ourselves from any such thing in the future then we can have a better future. But sometimes we don't want to accept that we have done something wrong we don't want to accept the things, this is a kind of rigidity and a kind of ego, and these two characteristics always hurdles in the learning of a person. A person's mind should always be flexible and should welcome changes and new ideas, otherwise the person will not change, and if person do not change then he will always lack. Changes are very important part of the life.

Self Examination and intro inspection may be compared with a kind of Data Mining where we mine our past and try to find out the interesting patterns. On the basis of association rules or a kind of pattern like if I do this then this is the result of this thing, then we can use those association rules in our future life. It will definitely help us and we will learn more and more new things instead of doing the same mistakes which we have already done.

These days computer world has grown up a lot, we have developed robots, which can automate the things, and even those kind of robots are available which use machine learning, it means they learn from the environment and past experiences and try to incorporate those past learning in the future life. Now here a question arises who developed robots, who developed machine learning algorithms, it’s the only man. If we can automate the things which we do , and we can make a robot think and to work in the same way as we do, then we can definitely do the same thing in our case.