In his autobiography, ‘The Journey Home’, Radhanath Swami notes ‘….. preserving loving relationships in this world requires much forgiveness, tolerance, patience, gratitude and humility. An essential virtue of humility is to accept others for what they are, despite differences. Tendency to judge others is often a symptom of insecurity, immaturity, or selfishness. Everyone is a child of God. God loves all of His children. If we wish to love God. we must learn to love those whom He loves.’
Mother Teresa in her Nobel Peace Prize lecture mentions the following ‘St. John says that you are a liar if you say you love God and you don’t love your neighbour. How can you love God who you do not see, if you do not love your neighbour whom you see, whom you touch, with whom you live? And so this is very important for us to realize that love, to be true, has to hurt. ‘ I felt, I kind of understood what she meant by …love to be true, has to hurt.
Mother gives a nice example…’I was visiting a home where they had all these old parents of sons and daughters who had put them in an institution and forgotten, maybe. And I went there, and I saw in that home that they had everything, beautiful things, but everybody was looking towards the door. I did not see a single one with a smile on their face. I asked the sister ‘why were they not smiling and why are they looking towards the door? I am so used to seeing the smiles on our people, even the dying ones smile. And the nurse said ” They are expecting, they are hoping that a son or a daughter will come to visit them. They are hurt because they are forgotten” – and see this is where love comes.’
Mark Twain refers to forgiveness as ‘“Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”
Dew Drops 