His ex-wife used to tell him, ‘It may sound like a cliché to you when I say I am going to forgive. Still, I am going to do it. Because this cliché has an amazing personal benefit!’
He would retort to her, right away, with a flashing sarcastic laugh followed by a nasty jab, ‘Is it about the satisfaction of fulfilling some religious virtue?’
He had no insight, whatsoever, to her sense of the personal benefit, until one day he had been in that cringing space. Burdened by the unbearable prick of a wounded inner self that was exposed relentlessly to a mixed bag of excruciating emotions - betrayal, shame, resentment, anger and what not? - he sought helplessly for a magic pill that could possibly calm him down.
He tried using all the self-help resources available to him.
He tried the principle of trivialization, ‘As humans we are not perfect, and from time to time we step on each other’s toes,’ which people frequently quote regardless of its appropriateness (or inappropriateness), while comforting a person who is wronged by another.
He even tried the ‘Forgive and Forget Mantra’, an important parental advice he received as a child for handling the pain inflicted on him in such situations.
Nothing really worked.
In this particular instance, forgiving was very difficult for him, almost, next to impossibility, as he reflected on the intention, context and disposition attached to the wrong done to him.
His offender had piled up blatant lies of Himalayan heights to tarnish him (intention) in front of a bevy of individuals who silently swallowed everything his accuser uttered (context). With an overwhelming vulnerability (disposition), rife with an exceeding sense of power-imbalance, he tried in vain to defend himself.
Emotionally beaten up beyond bounds, he shambled away from this harrowing encounter with a horrendous sense of inferiority, and a severely bruised ego.
Why should he think of forgiving a bully, a liar, and a manipulator who sliced him down with the sharpness of a thousand razor blades, pulverised his name, reputation and personal integrity? Even if he desired, and earnestly at- tempted, too, how could he possibly forgive such a monster? Moreover, by nature, he wasn’t the one who would forgive easily, particularly when the offender remained stone-heartedly unapologetic, and displayed no remorse.
Living through those despicable moments of nightmare and the piercing mental agony, he realized that what he had been experiencing was not really good for his health. It was weighing him down, and his spirit had plummeted way too low.
In that moment of reckoning, he remembered his ex-wife’s words about forgiveness which he used to slyly challenge.
Helpless as he was, he sensed the tiny beacons of hope strewed amidst those words which could lighten the burden of his sinking spirit that was interminably exposing him to all of the savaging emotions that he was going through, all at once!
But still he was indecisive about embarking on a journey of forgiveness, because a series of battles were being waged inside of him against the act of forgiveness, each trying to prove a point.
There was the pure religiously motivated battlefront: ‘It is good to forgive your offender, even if he doesn’t say, ‘sorry’. Because it will ultimately channelize the divine forgiveness to you for your own transgressions.’
This however, did not seem to stand in the face of another intense battlefront motivated by ethical contentions combined with questions
of justice: ‘My offender is a nasty, abusive and power-hungry bully. He might have done the same to many others, too. He should be exposed. Forgiving him is going to get him off the hook.’
Triggered by utter helplessness of indecisiveness, he phoned his ex-wife; he asked her what she had meant by the ‘personal benefit of forgiving.’
He expected her to retaliate to him with the same spiel of sarcasm, which he used to throw at her. On the contrary, she sounded placid.
In an extremely serene tone, she spoke to him: ‘Forgive your offender for yourself! A sound appetite, health, peace, happiness, and sleep will be the personal benefits you cherish for forgiving your offender, if you are able to do it unconditionally.’
He heard the phone going disconnected from her end, leaving him to make his decision, whether to forgive or not.
Lingering in the singularity of that all-en- compassing personal decision, he heard his inner voice, ‘This is exactly what I am missing since the day I started tallying up my grudges. It has affected my health, peace, happiness, appetite and sleep!
Leaving the phone on the table, he stretched his hands to reach for his diary. Grabbing it effortlessly, he opened it and started to scribble on a new page:
‘March 12th, 2022.
I shall certainly remember this day again. May be a million times for the rest of my life.
I want to promise to myself today that I don’t want to remember it again for the toxic, dehumanizing lies that were hurled at me on this day; but for the opportunity it solicited to me for giving forgiveness a chance!’
He then went to sleep.
He slept that night, peacefully, and all the nights that followed.
In his wakeful moments, though, he would remind himself as in an auto piloting mode: ‘Eliesa was right, the act of forgiving sounds like a cliché. But it has amazing personal benefits.’
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