How Can I Follow Your Advice and be Patient Towards a Person Who Harmed Me?

O Learned and Devoted Servants of God,

[Several devotees from various places, ranging from illiterate to highly qualified, came to Swami, seeking the clarification of their doubts in spiritual knowledge. Some of the prominent questions, along with the clarifications given by Swami, are given here.]

Q. How to have patience towards a person, who harmed me, which is always advised by You?

Swami replied:- There are two ways to achieve the patience towards your enemy, who harmed you:-

1) Think like this “I don’t know whether this is a fresh case in which the enemy harmed me without any fault on my side or a retort case in which the enemy harmed me since I harmed him in the previous birth. God is omniscient and knows all the births of every soul and hence, He can alone decide that whether this is a fresh case or a retort case. If this is a fresh case, God will harm him in suitable way if the soul is not reformed even after some time given. If this is a retort case, the case is closed and my debt is cleared as early as possible without further compounding interest, for which I shall thank God”. This path is the best if you can achieve the patience through the spiritual knowledge and if you have firm faith on the divine administration of God in which there will be never an error. This path is good for you if you can conquer the anger, hatred and revenge against the enemy with the help of spiritual knowledge.

2) If you are unable to get the patience by conquering anger etc., follow the second method of the retort case and then think like this “Certainly, I must have harmed my enemy in the previous birth and my enemy retorted by harming me in return and the case is closed as early as possible. If this case is not closed and if I have to be harmed by this enemy in future births, it is a terrible damage for me because prolonging the punishment makes me to receive the punishment along with accumulated interest in future”. This is the best way for anybody to avoid the idea of revenge in the beginning itself. If you doubt that this case might have been a fresh case, even then you need not worry about the revenge because in the divine administration of God, none can escape the punishment of the sin done provided there is no reformation in the time period given after doing the sin also.

You must always think that your loss in the damage done by the enemy is never compensated in any way by the revenge taken against your enemy. If you have conquered the idea of revenge, God will be pleased with you to compensate your loss even if it is a case of retort. The compensation will be the divine gift given by God to you for your divine patience! Kauravas insulted Draupadi and God Krishna has already decided to destroy Kauravas because it is a fresh case and not the case of retort. Had Draupadi been silent having patience thinking that it is a case of retort, Kauravas should have been killed by God and Draupadi must have been rewarded by Krishna by making her five sons to become the kings. But, Draupadi was always flared with terrible revenge to kill Kauravas and for this attitude of revenge, she was also punished by God separately. Her five sons were killed by Ashvatthaama and hence, the sons of Draupadi could not become kings. Absence of revenge brings gift from God and presence of revenge brings unnecessary extra punishment from God. Jesus told that revenge belongs to God and not to the soul.

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