“Every relationship leaves a mark. Some offered us affection; others challenged us with limits. Even those who hurt us, as Epictetus taught, offered us the opportunity to test our ability to respond with dignity. Buddha maintained that “hatred does not cease with hatred, but with love.” And Marcus Aurelius warned that nothing can harm us as much as our own reactions to what happens to us.
To remember with resentment is to fix one’s consciousness on a wound that becomes chronic. Resentment locks memory into a static narrative, while wisdom—as Hannah Arendt points out—consists in learning to “think without clinging to the past as a wound.”
Forgiveness is not denying the harm, but integrating it without becoming a prisoner to it. Those who learn to remember without hatred transform experience into awareness.
That is why I can say with serenity that I have no enemies in this world. Not because everyone has treated me fairly, but because I have chosen not to become a prisoner of my wounds. As Jesus taught, “the truth will set you free” (John 8:32), and that freedom begins when we understand that letting go is not weakness… but maturity of soul.”
Prabhuji
