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Bhagawan Mahavir )
[ 255
Even now there are some weak-minded people who put quite a different meaning to this act of the Lord. All these various interpretations show that they do not under-stand the truth behind it and those who understand it, do not try to follow in the footsteps of the Lord. We shall, therefore, give a short sketch of the forbearance of the Lord.
In fact · Forbearance ' is the virtue of a strong man which enables him to bear insult patiently and Lord Mahavira fully possessed this virtue. He was strong enough to take vengeance upon his antagonists but even then he bore all their insulting remearks patiently. His idea was that when someone tries to injure us, our duty is to know whether his act would really cause some injury to us, and if, under a fit ofanger, we are unable to make such decision, we should go to some wise man and take his advice. When we are quite sure of the said act being really injurious to us, we should try ta find out the cause which led our antagonist to act like this. We should think seriously whether we ever caused or intended to cause any injury to that man wittingly or unwittingly, if not, whether he suffered any loss through our mistake. If this be the fact we should not complain against him. Do we not try to take revenge upon him who has harmed us ? If we do, what right have we got to think of ruining a man who acts as we act and who feels as we feel. Our duty should be to regret for our mistake, and frankly to ask pardon from him. In this way we can correct ourselves without losing anything at the same time.
If after making a careful review of our past actions we find that we are faultless, we should try to know under what circumstances our antagonist was compelled to per
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