Forgiveness is a two-way process : Osho
The one who forgives benefits as much as the one who is being forgiven.”
Gaffar is a Sufi name for god. It means: one who forgives. If you can love and forgive, nothing else is needed. If you cannot forgive, you cannot love; if you cannot love, you cannot forgive. Only great love knows how to forgive, and only great forgiveness knows how to love, otherwise everybody has limitations. Everybody commits mistakes; to err is human, to forgive is divine. And the more you forgive, the more you start moving towards the divine; you start transcending humanity. And the higher you reach, the more love becomes possible.
So remember to love unconditionally and forgive unconditionally, and you will not accumulate any karma; you will not accumulate any past. You will not accumulate any bondage around you, and you will not have any barriers to your vision.
Once barriers disappear from vision, godliness is everywhere. If you can forgive and love then you will find it everywhere. You can’t see god in the sinner because you can’t forgive him.
Once you start forgiving, the distinction between sinner and saint is lost; the distinction between good and bad disappears. There are no more distinctions; you start seeing the one, the distinctionless. There is no man, no woman, no black, no white, no Indian, no foreigner. There is pure energy, and that pure energy is god.
To be revengeful towards anybody is to be revengeful towards god. To think of someone as your enemy is to make god your enemy. Hence, Jesus says, ‘Love your enemies’, because they are not enemies. We are members of each other; we are one whole.
And remember: one who forgives is forgiven. The quality and capacity to forgive is one of the most beautiful flowers of the human soul. Revenge is ugly, mean; it is falling to the lowest. To forgive is to rise so high. The more one becomes capable of forgiving, the more one’s heart expands, one’s consciousness grows bigger. The day one can forgive all and everything is the day when god meets man, and man meets god.
So let this quality of forgiveness become your very center. Don’t forgive in the sense that you are obliging. Don’t forgive as a duty, because then it creates the ego, and a very subtle ego, which is dangerous, more dangerous than revenge itself. The holy ego is the worst possible ego in the world. So don’t be righteous. Take it with ease; to forgive should come naturally, and then it is really a benediction.
All religions have found strategies, first to make you feel guilty, then to give you a simple method so that you can be free of guilt. I am not teaching you a religion. I simply want to tell you the truth. If you have done something wrong, go to the person. Be humble, ask his forgiveness. Only he can forgive you, nobody else. And remember, the meaning of the word ‘sin’ is forgetfulness. So now, don’t forget again and do the same; otherwise, your asking forgiveness becomes meaningless. Be careful, be alert, be conscious; and don’t do the same thing again.
To forgive is divine, so if somebody comes to you and says that he has committed a mistake against you, don’t miss the opportunity of tasting something of the divine. Or, when you have committed a mistake and you go to somebody else to be forgiven, you are giving him a great chance to have some taste of the divine. It is good for both of you. By forgiving, he tastes something which is impossible to explain; it can only be called divine. And you also will feel something tremendously beautiful
