Forgiveness Is a Gift You Give to Yourself
By Sumit Paul, New Age Islam
08 May 2026
Mother of Chandranath Rath: "I want my son’s murderers to be punished. But because I’m a mother, I don’t want them hanged, they should get life in prison.
No baying for blood, just quiet dignified grief
Padmaja Joshi on X, PTI
Sometime ago, I was moved to read in a leading English broadsheet that the widow of a slain police commissioner chose to forgive her servant who stole jewelleries worth Rs. 50 lacs from her house. " We brought him up like a son, " said the calm and composed lady. This is indeed laudable. Forgiveness is a quality an individual is born with. It's innate, intrinsic and integral to a person. Agreed, any quality can be cultivated with the passage of time, but humane qualities cannot be developed in a vacuous heart. It needs oceanic compassion to forgive someone for his transgression, that too sans any rancour. Only by forgiving, do we give a person yet another opportunity to redeem himself / herself. It's very easy to put a man behind bars, but correspondingly difficult to forgive him. Why shouldn't he get a proper punishment? After all, he deserves it. It's what we lesser mortals think. But punishment leaves a permanent scar. An act of forgiveness alters the heart.
You embarrass an offender more by forgiving him than punishing. Kabir said tellingly,' Jo toko kaanta boye tohe boye tu phool / Tohe phool ko phool hain, waako hain tirshool' (Those who sow thorns for you, sow flowers for them/ They'll remain flowers to you, but tridents to them). Punishment has a sadistic, savage and sardonic streak. It degrades the culprit and also demeans all those involved in punishing him. It has a vindictive bent and is soaked in a revengeful spirit. Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr. became greats because they could forgive unconditionally. Gandhi bore no ill-will against the English and said that once they left, they must leave like friends and not as enemies. " So long as enmity rankles in heart to grow / The fountain of love will not start to flow." Remember, no offence is so great that it cannot be pardoned. Almost every human being in his limited span of life on earth, lives and keeps nurturing and harbouring those perceived wounds and scars, he thinks he has got from the people around him.
Do we ever pause and think that we too have hurt many people? Yet, if we deserve to be pardoned, why can't others have the same privilege? Until we forgive, hatred will continue to rankle and resentment will not let us sleep peacefully. Forgiving is giving away bitterness forever. It's a feeling of bliss, experienced by those who've forgiven. It's the culmination of all that's good and desirable in an individual. We may condemn the public beheadings in Saudi Arabia but we conveniently ignore a provision in the Sharia law that if the transgressor is pardoned by the folks of the victims, he's not decapitated, not even the King or the Qazi can carry out the order of execution after that. There have been instances in Saudi Arabia when the victim was saved from the scaffold in the nick of time. In Saudi Arabia in 1988, a young man was saved by the mother of the victim, who he brutally killed. " Spare his life, he too has a mother like me, " screamed the victim's mother. When we forgive, we not only free the wrongdoer but also emancipate ourselves from the unbearable pressure of nagging ill-feeling.
When we hold a grudge, it feels like we’re punishing the person who hurt us. But the truth is, it’s us that is hurting. The other person has likely moved on and probably doesn’t give us a second thought. Forgiveness is the greatest act of spirituality. That's why, it (forgiveness) is called ' a continuous process of self-purification' (Kshama avirat vidhiyetam aatm-prakshalan asti: Vachaspati Mishra's 'Brahmasutra'). It's all-encompassing compassion and the most liberating attribute. It emancipates an individual and brings about his salvation even when he's alive! By far the strongest poison to the human spirit is the inability to forgive oneself or another person. Forgiveness is no longer an option but a necessity for healing. Forgiveness plays a role in emotional healing. You can’t fully heal or be free until you forgive. Remember the words of 'Quality of Mercy' from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. More than mercy, Portia was endorsing the need for forgiveness. I quote:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice
Replace mercy with forgiveness and the soliloquy does not lose charm.
So, let's put all our piques behind and love and laugh like Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.
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A regular columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul is a researcher in comparative religions, with special reference to Islam. He has contributed articles to the world's premier publications in several languages including Persian.
URL: https://newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/forgiveness-is-gift-you-give-to-yourself/d/139950
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