JAINA Convention 1993 07 Pittusburgh

Author(s): Federation of JAINA
Publisher: USA Federation of JAINA

Page 94

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Total and absolute forgiveness takes years of
practice in humility, compassion, sympathy, understanding, tolerance, sensitivity to fellow beings. We can never acquire these virtues until we start melting our ego. And that is one of the reasons forgiveness is well recognized, but rarely practiced in its noblest form.
In most incidences, usually our ego, our pride, and arrogance (part of which appear to come from the unprecedented economic independence we enjoy) come in the way of forgiveness. Some how if we admit our mistakes, we feel we have gone down. We have lost our self-respect, self-esteem. So...the real barrier to forgiveness is our ego, pride, and arrogance.
• Most people are intelligent enough to know when they make a mistake. Our pride makes it difficult to admit them. f we can understand these weaknesses, perhaps
we will be a bit more tolerant and compassionate to our fellow human beings. Since our pride and ego usually come in the way of forgiving some one, let us make use of a common friend to overcome that obstacle. All we need to do is take the initiative. . When we say I forgive you, we should not
imply that the other person is guilty. What we should say is that let us forget what happened and start afresh. Let us never dig
up the dirt. • If we say "let all souls forgive me, I forgive
all souls" on a regular basis but do not change our behavior, we are not being honest
to ourselves. • We must practice preventive form of for
giveness every single day.
SUGGESTIONS/OBSERVATIONS
Let us be aware of a couple of weaknesses of human nature: • Usually we ignore our own faults and magnify
the faults of others.
HEARTFELT APPRECIATION
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"Praise worthy is he who gives, Earned by his own strength;
Otherwise he is as good as a thief"
-Udyotanasuri - 7TH BIENNIAL JAINA CONVENTION - JULY 1993 -