Forgiveness

An Explanation by Maharaj Charan Singh

We are all knocking at the Lord’s door to forgive us for all the sins we have committed, all the karmas we have committed, right from the beginning of the creation. Since we have been part of it, we have collected a lot of karmas. Unless we are forgiven for all that we have done, the soul can never go back to the Father.

Meditation is nothing but seeking his forgiveness, nothing else. “Whatever we have done or we are too weak to do every day, please forgive us.” Meditation is nothing else. It is not vain words to say to him, but practically we pray to him for forgiveness by attending to meditation. It is the same as repentance. When we are sitting in meditation, we are actually repenting for what we have done in the past. We are repenting and seeking his forgiveness. We are sorry for what we have done in the past and now we are asking the Father to forgive us.

So repentance and forgiveness go together. Unless we repent, unless we realize what we have done, we will never ask for forgiveness. First, repentance comes within us – we realize we have done something wrong – then we go to another person to seek his forgiveness. So we do realize what we have done, that we have been doing something wrong in the past and now we seek the Father’s forgiveness for what we have done, for what stands between us and the Father.

So as far as forgiveness in the world is concerned, if we do not forgive what other people do to us, we build karmic connections with them, and then we may have to come back to forgive them. They may have to come back to seek our forgiveness and we may have to come back to forgive them. We want to escape from all that. So we do not want justice at all, even if others have trespassed against our rights. We just want to forgive them so that we may not create any karmic link with them that might pull us back to this creation.

That is why we should also try to forgive whatever anybody has done against us – it is immaterial whether the person even asks us for forgiveness. We should not have any idea of revenge within us – that he has done this to me and if the opportunity comes, I will do it to him. We should not have that attitude, even if he is arrogant enough not to ask for forgiveness. Even then I think we should forgive the person, because we have had enough and we do not want more of these karmic relationships.

So we should just forgive the person and call it quits. The Lord knows best how he is going to account for all that, but at least we should have no karmic relationship with that person. Whether you go to a court as the accused or the complainant, you still have to go to court. We don’t want to go to the court of justice at all, even as a complainant. We want to escape from this court of justice, so we just forgive. If we go to the court, we are judged too. But we want to rise above all that.

So whatever we have done in the past, we can seek forgiveness by meditation. Whatever anybody has done to us now, we should always be anxious to forgive. We should just try to forgive them. We should not have anything weighing on our mind at all. Then we do not create any karmic relationship. That is why Christ said: You go and ask for his forgiveness while you are on the way, meaning while you are living and he is living.

So if he leaves – if he dies – then you have no one to ask for forgiveness. That is added to your karmas and you have to ask the Lord for forgiveness. But while you are both living, you can seek his forgiveness and you can forgive him also. So forgiveness is always best.
_{Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. III}