By Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
In this Weekly Wisdom, Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar shares beautiful insights on forgiveness and the qualities and functions of divinity. Find out.
If someone asked you where’s the beginning point of a ball, a tennis ball, what would you say? Where does it begin? In a circle, every point is a beginning and every point is an end. So, creation is a continuous process. In the same way, dissolution is also a continuous process.
There’s spring and summer here, and there’s winter in the southern hemisphere. So, at the same time, on this planet, there’s summer and winter together, but in different places. In the same way, there’s both creation and destruction.
If mankind was created by the Divine, who created the Divine itself? Is there a beginning and an end?
You’ve answered your own question. Old people are dying. New babies are being born. So, it isn’t linear. Creation is spherical. So, when there’s a spherical dimension to it, there’s no beginning and no end.
This is what the Vedas say: “God isn’t born because He never had a beginning.” And neither did His creation. Creation is changing. So it’s called no beginning and no end. Understand?
Like a sphere. It doesn’t begin or end. It may appear to begin and end because the sun appears to rise and set. Does it really rise or set? No! The sun is just glowing in one place.
So what appears is called maya. It appears to be. But in reality, there’s no beginning and no end.
That’s why God or Divinity is considered to be beyond time. The moment there’s time, there’s a beginning and there’s an end because time is the measure between two events. Space is the measure between two objects. But Divinity is beyond time, beyond space. All time and space are inside that.
Like the sky. Clouds move in the sky. But where’s the beginning of the sky? Where’s the end of the sky? No, there’s no beginning and no end. So, in the ocean of Divinity, the whole existence simply is.
The ancient people said, “Sat means it’s neither born nor dies but simply exists, and chit means it’s conscious, and ananda means it’s bliss.” Three qualifications to Divinity. It exists, it’s conscious, and it’s bliss.
5 functions: creation, maintenance, destruction, hiding, and blessing
Then, there are 5 functions to Divinity. What are they? If it’s conscious, it should be doing something. It creates within itself, like a wave isn’t coming from outside but within the water, right? So, within the Divinity, creation happens. It’s maintained in the same space. And it destroys in the same space.
Like, from the mud, you build a house. On the earth, the house remains. And when you destroy the house, it still remains on the earth. When you destroy the house, the bricks don’t fly off into the sky. The brick comes from the mud. When it’s built, it remains in the mud. When it’s destroyed, it goes back to the mud.
In the same way, the whole creation is in God. It’s created, maintained, and dissolves back. And then, Divinity hides and then blesses. These are two more functions. 5 functions are creation, maintenance, destruction, hiding, and blessing. Because you know it’s not obvious. You can’t see it everywhere. So it hides. It means it’s veiled, like the roots of the tree are veiled. They’re under the ground. You can’t see the roots. Can you? Only sometimes when you dig can you see the roots.
In the same way, God is hiding in the whole creation and in everybody. If you have an eye for it, you see Him in everything and everybody. The Divinity hides. Love is hiding in the whole world.
There are millions of people. Only when you interact with them can you feel their love. Isn’t it? How do you know whether somebody has love or not? If you never talk to them, if you never have any interaction, if you don’t even look at them, you don’t even feel that, right?
In the same way, the good qualities in every human being are hiding. They need an opportunity to come and blossom. In the same way, talent hides. How do you know when someone has a beautiful voice? Only when they sing! The voice is always there, but when they sing, you can hear and appreciate it.
Good qualities are hiding in every human being. In the same way, Divinity is hiding in everybody. Only time and again it manifests. And then, it gives you blessings, fulfills your wishes, and grants you things that you want. That power is also within the Divinity, the 5 functions. 3 qualities and 5 functions to the Divinity.
Forgiveness, both of oneself and others
Now, you must remember that you’re not the same person who was there yesterday, the day before, 10 years ago, 5 years ago, 1 year ago. You’re not the same person! Your mind is like a river. It’s flowing all the time with different thoughts. Some things are the same in you, but most of the things are not the same. That which is the same in you, that which doesn’t change, doesn’t make any mistakes is different. What makes mistakes is that which changes. And that you who made a mistake, is gone already.
Like you can’t take two dips in the same river. Once you dip in the river and get out, the water has already moved. So there’s fresh water in the river all the time, isn’t there? There’s a beautiful story about Lord Buddha.
A gentleman was so angry at Buddha because his children all went to Buddha’s meditation sessions. They would sit the whole day there and meditate, and not attend to his business. Naturally, the father got so upset. All that counted for him was only money, money, money, money. He thought of money all the time. And his children became more intelligent. They thought money was not all that was needed in life. There was something more.
So when Lord Buddha came, they all got attracted to Lord Buddha. All his children sat and meditated. They were engaged in meditation and Satsang. So their father got angry and said, “Who is this guy that has come to our city and spoiled our children, our young people?”
Shivering with anger, he looked at Buddha and spat on his face. When he did it, Buddha just simply wiped his face and there was no change. He had the same serene smile. This man couldn’t stand there anymore so he went back home. The whole night he couldn’t sleep because the presence, the energy of Buddha was so strong, that it just transformed him to be in front of him for a few minutes, spitting on his face. He has never seen a person who didn’t react and sat smiling so serenely.
He couldn’t sleep. That brought him such a big change, that he started thinking about what life is and what he should do. He thought, “I have enough money to take care of another 5 generations. Why am I doing this? Why am I so angry at my children? If they’re happy, that’s all I want. What is the purpose of money? It is to bring happiness. If money doesn’t bring happiness but a lot of misery, what is the use of this money?”
These thoughts kept coming into his mind automatically. The next day, he went to Buddha, fell at his feet, and said, “Please forgive me. I wasn’t in my senses. I made a blunder, the greatest mistake in my life.”
So Buddha looks at him and says, “I can’t forgive you.” All of the disciples sitting there were shocked.
They said, “What? Buddha is saying that He can’t forgive the man who is crying!” They thought he was an ocean of compassion who always forgives big mistakes.
Then, Buddha smiled and said, “See the person at whom you were angry is no longer here. If I meet him, I’ll tell him to forgive you. To forgive the person who made the mistake, a chance to do so isn’t there. You’re not the same man today. That angry man who was here yesterday is gone, finished! You’re a new man!”
Depth in a fast-flowing river
Every moment, life is like a fast-flowing river. You’re new. Put your attention on that. So you don’t need to forgive yourself. You don’t need to forgive anybody. Just wake up and see. Life is such. Life is a drama. All the wrong things you did, you learned a great lesson. All the wrong things brought you so much misery, and all the misery that you got in your life gave you depth. You became a deep personality. You became a deep person. Don’t commit the same mistake again.
It gives you depth, and the joy in your life gives you expansion, expanded awareness. Take it for granted that you’re forgiven. The fact that you’re on this planet is your forgiveness.
The name in Sanskrit for Mother Earth, the planet Earth, is forgiveness. Shama means forgiveness, and the same word is the name of the Earth. Someone is digging the earth with shovels. He puts dynamite in the earth and makes holes. And what does the earth give you? Water! It says, “You’re so tired from digging on me. Okay, drink some water.” It gives you pure, sweet water.
You dig deeper. It says, “You’re not satisfied with water? Come on, take gold.” Take what you need! The earth is giving to you all the time. Whatever you do, the earth always gives you the best. It gives you more and more. So the earth is called shama, which means the forgiver.
The very word is the function also. This is the beauty of the Sanskrit language. Leaves are called parna. Do you know why? Because par means to attract the sun’s rays. That which takes the sun’s rays and takes the bad air and gives you good. That’s called parna. Photosynthesis is mentioned in its very name.
Play your role and bless others with compassion
So you are forgiven. You need not think about it. You are given a role to play. That’s it! Always think that you have a role to play so you play it and that’s it. So you need not try to forgive yourself. Trying to forgive ourselves is the biggest problem. See that nature has given you a role to play. God has asked you to do this work. You’ve done it! That’s how you should see the past. Okay? That’s finished, done, gone.
For forgiving others, you should just wake up and see that they weren’t in their consciousness so they just made mistakes. If they were wise, they wouldn’t have made those mistakes. So when they weren’t wise, they made mistakes and they’re going to reap the fruit of those actions. So you give compassion.
And you bless them so they won’t suffer too much because of their wrong actions. Say, “Let their wrong actions reduce their suffering. Let their wrong actions be forgiven. Let their mind become more knowledgeable and go on the right path.” So when someone makes a mistake you have compassion and a blessing for them.
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