Touching the Feet of Sainted Vashishtha

The Ideal of Forgiveness, a tale from India.
~For my friend of 30 years,  Alka Urwati~

Gopal's Eternal Brother

Once there was a great king named Vishwamitra. One day he learned that there was a saint in his kingdom whom everybody adored. The name of this saint was Vashishtha, and everyone gladly touched his feet. Now, although Vishwamitra was a very great king, nobody used to come and touch his feet.
People were afraid of him, and they would tremble before him. But with Vashishtha it was different. People gladly touched Vashishtha's feet with deepest appreciation and admiration.
So Vishwamitra was extremely jealous of Vashishtha. Vashishtha was a very great saint. After praying to God for many, many years, Vashishtha had realised God, and could speak to God face to face.
Vishwamitra knew that this was the reason why everybody was adoring Vashishtha instead of him, so he too started praying to God.

He prayed to God for a couple of years very seriously, often fasting but still he did not realize God. Then he became impatient. He went to Vashishtha and said, "You have realized God, but I have not been able to. I wish you to tell the world that I have also realized God, like you."

Vashista replied, "How can I say that?" "You can say it," the king insisted. "If you tell people, everybody will believe you, because you yourself have realized God. You know who God is, you speak to God. Tell everyone that I have realized God. Otherwise I shall kill your children!" Vashishtha said, "You can kill my children, but I cannot tell a lie."
Vishwamitra was a most powerful king. One by one he had the hundred sons of Vashishtha killed. The hundred sons were very well educated, kind and spiritual. They had studied the Vedas, the Upanishads and other religious and sacred books.

Nevertheless, the notorious king killed them all. Even after doing this Vishwamitra was not satisfied, because Vashishtha still refused to announce that he had realized God.
After a few months he thought, "This time he has to tell the world that I have realized God, or I shall kill him!" With this idea in his mind he went to Vashishtha's small cottage.

Before knocking at the door he stood outside quietly listening to the conversation inside. Arundhati, one of Vashishtha's wives, was saying to her husband, "My lord, why don't you say that Vishwamitra has realized God? If you had said it I would still have all my children. They were such nice, kind, devoted children.
They were all jewels. But just because you wouldn't say that he has realized God, he has killed all my children, and who knows what he will do next!"
Vashishtha said, "How can you ask me to do that? I love him. He has not realized God. How can I tell people that he has realized God? I love him and that is why I cannot tell a lie."

Even though Vishwamitra had killed the hundred sons of Vashishtha, the father could still say that he loved him! When Vishwamitra heard what Vashishtha said, he came running in and touched Vashishtha's feet, crying, "Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me, my lord. I never knew that anyone on earth could love a person who had killed all his children."
Vashishtha placed his hand on Vishwamitra's head and blessed him. He said, "Today you have realized God, because today you know what love is, what truth is. God is all forgiveness. I am forgiving you, because the God in me is forgiving you. Today you have realized God."

What do we learn from this story? We learn that the ideal of forgiveness is the supreme ideal. When we pray to God, we see God's qualities: love and forgiveness. When we receive love and forgiveness from God, we can behave like God towards other people. Vashishtha's hundred sons were killed, yet even then he loved Vishwamitra.

Then, when Vishwamitra begged for forgiveness, Vashishtha gave it immediately, as well as giving him his inner Light, Joy and Power. Like Vashishtha, we always have the ability to forgive people when they do wrong things.
In this way we give them our Light, our Truth, our Joy. From this story we also learn the importance of associating with holy men.
When we are in the company of a spiritual person, even for a second, what transformation takes place in our life! Our life is changed in the twinkling of an eye.

From Gopal's Eternal Brother And Other Stories for Children by Sri Chinmoy

Mother Teresa, the Venerable: "If we really want to love,

[our self first, and then the other] we must learn how to forgive."

This article appeared here previously January 15, 2009

Rahamim, Compassionate Forgiveness

"For He knows how we are formed, remembers that we are dust. Our days are like the grass; like flowers of the field, we blossom. The wind sweeps over us and we are gone; our place knows us no more. But the Lord's kindness is forever, toward the faithful from age to age." --Torah, Psalm 103:14-18

In recognition of this the Jewish day of the New Lunar year, 5770, Rosh Ha-Shon'ah is again upon us with all its great blessings and preparations for the coming New Year. Ever important to the full understanding of Jewish wisdom are the extensive teachings about kindness, compassion and forgiveness. At the New Year these thoughts are again forefront in the Jewish mind. Canadian Rabbi, Stuart Rosenberg writes in his book, More Loves Than One about the force and authority of love. Love, he writes, is communal, it is familial, it is Eros, and above all, it is patient and forgiving.

Rahamim, is described by the author, as "a humane nearness of G-d to the offender, a willingness to accept and affirm that person as a person, while standing firmly opposed to his wrongdoing... is profoundly related to much of the ethos" of Torah. He says that the word, rahamim, is accurately translated as 'compassionate forgiveness.' Rosenberg asserts that nothing greater can happen to a human being than to be deeply and wholly forgiven. "And there can be no greater love of things, ideas, or persons without the central, ethical role which forgiveness plays in human affairs."

In this view, a 'first step' consists of perhaps excusing the transgression once, while awaiting the next fault, or mistake so as to pounce again, since it can't be a mistake twice, the Rabbi writes. In this hard, rational mind, these persons of the 'first step' draw conclusions quickly before learning of all the factors; yet mature love asks, and needs, patience. It "bids us to wait and tolerate."

And sometimes we think we have learned the meaning of forgiveness when we have really only achieved a sort of truce or cease fire. "Too many of us," writes Rabbi Rosenberg, "pardon our neighbors, but seek to exact tribute. "Gleefully, we set down a catalog of pre-conditions for our compassion. But forgiveness is incomplete if we can only offer punishments fitting the crime, and not true love," or Maitreya. Forgiveness that is complete and whole exacts no tribute, it requires no moral barter.

The forgiveness, Rabbi (Rabbi, a Hebrew word meaning teacher) Rosenberg writes of is biblical, not pragmatic; it is extravagant, not quid pro quo; it is mindful, not forgetful, and it is life changing and healing to all involved, not only to 'transgressors.' "Forgiveness is the Divine answer" to the utter imperfection implied in human existence. It is a free-will act, liberating all who engage. "This is why no man truly loves who cannot accept forgiveness as a way of life. The deeper our experiences of forgiveness, the deeper and fuller our love experience."

In this radical viewpoint, forgiveness is a wild, bold risk, and a healing, freeing opening to a new day. Its wisdom lies in recognition of our mutual clumsiness and imperfection. Forgiving means reconciliation "in spite of estrangement, reunion in the face of hostility, acceptance of the unacceptable, receiving the rejected. If we are not to kill the things we love, we must learn to accept help rather than reject, receive rather than to defy, embrace rather than to revile those whose lives connect to our own."

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