The price of hate and pardon

By Paulo Coelho


In my notes for the year 1989 I come across some sentences jotted down from a conversation I had with J, whom I call my “master.” At that time we were talking about an unknown mystic called Kenan Rifai, about whom little has been written.

“Kenan Rifai says that when people praise us we should watch how we behave,” says J, “because that means that we hide our faults very well. Finally we end up believing that we are better than we think and then the next step is to let ourselves be dominated by a false feeling of security that will eventually set up dangers all around us.”
“How can we be attentive to the opportunities that life gives us?”
“If you have only two opportunities, learn how to turn them into twelve. When you have twelve they will multiply automatically. That is why Jesus says: “he who has a lot will have a lot more given. He who has little will have that little taken from him.”
“That is one of the harshest sentences in the Gospels. But I have noticed throughout my life that it is absolutely true. So how can we identify the opportunities?”
“Pay attention to every moment, because the opportunity - the “magic instant” – is within our reach, although we always let it pass by because we feel guilty. So try not to waste your time blaming yourself: the universe will see to correcting you if you’re not worthy of what you’re doing.”
“And how is the universe going to correct me?”
“It won’t be through tragedies; these happen because they are part of life, and they should not be thought of as punishment. Generally the universe shows us that we are wrong when it takes away what is most important to us: our friends.
“Kenan Rifai was a man who helped many people find themselves and to achieve a harmonious relation with life. Even so, some of those people proved to be ungrateful and never even turned their head to say ‘thanks’. They turned to him only when their lives were in a state of utter confusion. Rifai helped them again without mentioning the past: he was a man with many friends and the ungrateful always ended up on their own.”
“Those are fine words but I don’t know if I am capable of pardoning ingratitude so easily.”
“It’s very difficult. But there is no choice: if you don’t pardon, then you’ll think about the pain they caused you and that pain will never go away. I’m not saying that you have to like those who do you wrong. I’m not telling you to go back to that person’s company. I’m not suggesting that you start seeing that person as an angel or as someone who acted without any hurtful intentions. All I am saying is that the energy of hate will take you nowhere, but the energy of pardon which manifests itself through love will manage to change your life in a positive sense.”
“I have been hurt many times.”
“That’s the reason that you still bear within yourself the little boy who cried hiding from his parents, the boy who was the weakest in his class. You still bear the marks of that frail little boy who could never find a girlfriend and was never good at sports. You haven’t managed to chase off the scars of some injustices they committed against you during your life. But what good does that do you? None at all. Absolutely nothing. Just a constant desire to feel sorry for yourself for being the victim of those who were stronger. Or else dress up like an avenger ready to inflict more wounds on those who hurt you. Don’t you think you’re wasting your time with all that?”
“I think it’s human.”
“It’s certainly human. But it’s neither intelligent nor reasonable. Respect your time on this Earth, understand that God has always pardoned you, and learn to pardon too.”

After this conversation with J, which took place just before I traveled to spend 40 days in the Mojave desert in the United States, I began to understand better the boy, the adolescent, the hurt adult I once was. One morning, going from the Valley of Death in California to Tucson in Arizona, I made a mental list of everyone I thought I hated because they had hurt me. I went along pardoning them one by one and six hours later, in Tucson, my soul felt so light and my life had changed much for the better.

Guilt and Forgiveness

By: Paolo Coelho

During his pilgrimage to Mecca, a holy man was suddenly aware of God's presence beside him. He fell into a trance, knelt down, hid his face and prayed:
'Lord, I ask only one thing in my life, that You give me the grace never to offend You.'
'I cannot give you that grace,' replied the Almighty.
Surprised, the man asked why.
'If you never offend me, I will have no reason to forgive you,' he heard the Lord say. 'And if I have no need to forgive you, you will soon forget the importance of being merciful to others. Therefore, continue on your way with Love, and allow me to forgive you now and then, so that you do not forget this virtue either.'
The story clearly illustrates our own problems with guilt and forgiveness. When we were children, we would often overhear our mother saying: 'My child only behaved foolishly because he got into bad company. He's a very good boy really.'
And so we never took responsibility for our actions, never asked for forgiveness and ended up forgetting that we must also be generous with those who offend us. The act of forgiveness has nothing to do with feelings of guilt or cowardice: we all make mistakes and it is only by occasionally stumbling that we can improve and progress. On the other hand, if we are too tolerant of our own behaviour - especially when this hurts other people - we become isolated and incapable of correcting our path.
How can we drive out guilt, but at the same time be capable of asking forgiveness for any mistakes we make?
There are no easy formulae, but there is good sense: we should judge the results of our actions and not the intentions behind them. Deep down, everyone is good, but that is irrelevant and will not heal any wounds we might inflict. Here is a beautiful story that illustrates precisely what I mean:
When he was small, Cosroes had a teacher who helped him to become an outstanding student in all his subjects. One afternoon, the teacher punished him severely, apparently for no reason.
Years later, Cosroes acceded to the throne. One of his first actions was to summon his former schoolmaster and demand an explanation for the injustice he had committed.
'Why did you punish me when I had done nothing wrong?' he asked.
'When I saw how intelligent you were, I knew at once that you would inherit the throne from your father,' replied his teacher. 'And so I decided to show you how injustice can mark a man for life. Now that you know that,' the teacher went on, 'I hope you will never punish another person without good reason.'
This reminds me too of a conversation I had over supper once in Kyoto. The Korean teacher Tae-Chang Kim was talking about the differences between Western thought and Eastern thought.
'Both our civilisations have a golden rule. In the West, you say: 'Do as you would be done by.' This means that a loving person establishes a model of happiness which he tries to impose on all those he meets.
The golden rule in the East appears to be almost the same: 'Never do to others what you would not want done to you.' This is based on an understanding of all the things that make us unhappy, including having to obey a model of happiness imposed on us by others - and that makes all the difference.
In order to improve the world, we do not impose our own way of showing our love, we try instead to avoid making others suffer.'
So show respect and care when dealing with your fellow man. Jesus said: 'You shall know them by their fruits.' And old Arab proverb says: 'God judges the tree by its fruits, not by its roots.' And according to a popular proverb: 'The beater forgets the beating, the beaten never do.'