MAKING PEACE WITH OUR PAST

Pic.: Usha Prasadh

A dear friend of mine, who lives in the US, wrote to me, yesterday:

“Reading your post, ‘Who is the Leopard?’, makes me wonder about this: ‘When a person is not glorifying or justifying his past...’ How do you make peace with the past when the person finds ways to justify and/or glorify the past and does not accept or recognize the role he/she had to play in the wrong that was done?

It is hard to move on in that case and the wound does stay alive. One may not dig gory past, but it’s hard to forgive and move on...”

I fully agree with what my friend had voiced in her comment.

It is easy to forgive when the other person sincerely apologizes for hurting me in the past... Similarly, it is easy for the other person to forgive me for hurting him or her in the past when I apologize sincerely to him or her...

It is relatively not that easy to forgive the other person for hurting me in the past when I do not hear an apology from him or her. Similarly, it is equally not easy for the other person to forgive me when he or she does not hear it from me, too. But, we have stopped glorifying or justifying our respective past actions (which had caused hurts), the road to forgiveness is not fully blocked...

The toughest thing to do is to forgive one another when we keep glorifying and justifying our respective past actions... and refuse to budge, refuse to show any kind of remorse...

In fact, if at all there is something called true forgiveness in life, it takes place in the thick of our glorification and justification of our past actions...

Just imagine, if I have to wait to make peace with the past till the other person stops justifying and glorifying his past actions! It is akin to a life-imprisonment of the worst kind – because, it is self-imposed!

Japan attacked Peal Harbor first and killed more than 2,500 American soldiers besides destroying ships and property worth billions of dollars. Worst, it woke up a sleeping giant, who, till then, had refused to participate in the madness called ‘The World War – 2’...

Soon, the wounded giant hit back at Japan – which was the only country refusing to surrender and end the war -  by dropping Atom Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing over two-lakh innocents and maiming for life  millions more... yes, besides destroying two cities completely!

Today, almost seventy years later, America and Japan are best friends. None of them wants to talk about their bitter past – who started it all, why, when etc... Their leaders, today, know, deep down in their hearts, that what had happened was not right, not good... and, they have silent repentance about it...

Still, till today, the Emperor of Japan has not been heard saying publicly, “We are sorry; it was we who had provoked you first.”

Nor, till today, any American President has been heard saying, “We are sorry; whatever the provocation, Nuclear Bomb was too heinous a response.”

So, what we see, here, is that none of them has asked a public apology; but, they are not glorifying or justifying what had happened in the past...

It is possible to feel the power of forgiveness in this case... For, the unspoken message is: “We are sorry.”

It was Pontius Pilate, a Roman leader, who sentenced Jesus to be hanged on the cross... It was the Roman soldiers who had brutally tortured Him... It was the Roman government who had vowed to wipe out Christianity right in its bud...

Then, what happened?

Right at the heart of Rome stands the epicenter called ‘Vatican’... Rome is a Christian nation now!

Forgiveness, in its true sense, can never be for the sake of ‘other person’... It is for our own sake...

It cannot be at the behest of other person... It is at our own behest...

It has nothing to do with ‘public apologies’... It has everything to do with ‘private apologies’...  

Finally, forgiveness is not an ‘act’... It is just a clear realization, deep in our hearts, that somewhere the vicious cycle has to end... And, the best place – and nearest place - to end it is my own heart...

The less we rationalize on it, the better!

GERALD D’CUNHA