Uttam Kshama

“He who has the potential shall be equally forgiving, while the weaker would tend to be short tempered.”

Uttama Kshama or Forbearance:

In our day to day life, one may find himself in circumstances which are likely to arouse his wrath. We are faced with many situations everyday where it is easy to lose our temper. Inspite of such provocations, one must avoid emotional disturbance and maintain peace of mind. Maintaining patience in the midst of provocatiosn is called Kshama or forbearance.

To forgive is our true nature but what causes anomaly to this nature of ours needs to be given some thought. While absence of anger (Krodh) is the most perfect form of Kshama, if at all one gets angry, how quickly does one eliminate this feeling is the measure of one’s potential. One who is mighty would always follow Forbearance while one who shows his anger would be as weak. Although it might appear that someone who terrorizes others is very mighty or powerful but the truth is that the extent to which you live your life with love & affection shows the degree of power you possess. Now let’s see how this power to forgive (which is our true nature) has been transformed into our weakness?

Reason of Anger – Unfulfilled Expectations

In what state do we get angry? There is only one state – when our expectations are not fulfilled. While we appear to be a very loving person till our expectations are fulfilled, we start showing our true colors when our expectations are not met. The more expectations you have, more likely you are to get angry. And by doing this we are making our own lives miserable.

While we practice Kshama (forbearance) in our lives, it is very different kind of Kshama. We practice it due to our limitations. For example, you are crossing a crowded road & someone bumps into you. If he is a weak person, you’d get into an argument with him & try to intimidate him. On the contrary if he’s stronger than you, you’d simply keep quiet or smile & say “It’s okay Sir, it happens all the time!” We practice it due to our selfishness or helplessness. For example, you do not get angry on a customer who has asked you to show 50 items to him & finally walks away saying “I might come some other time, didn’t like any of those.” Or else you’d be not be doing a good business.

We also practice Kshama to get honour. “Wow! What a forgiving person. You may say anything but he never gets angry”. We might practice Kshama keeping in mind some Mundane gains.
But this kind of Kshama is not a true indicator of our internal potential. These are simply results of our seasoned minds. Let’s see if we can actually enhance our potential & attain true nature of Forgiveness. Everyone says “one should not get angry” but Jain Dharma goes a step beyond & tells us what to do when we get angry. Let’s look at the solutions to Anger so that when we get angry we can use these solutions.

Develop Positive Thinking & Get Rid of Negative Thoughts: For any event that’s happening in front of us, if we think about the shortcomings in it, we cannot escape and get angry. If we think about the good things that are taking place with it, we will surely be delighted & maintain our peace. We have a tendency to look at what’s going wrong in a particular situation, and hence, more often than not end up, being ominous & angry. But we shall resolve to eliminate all negative thoughts from our lives & start developing positive thinking which will lead us to attain the potential to forgive.

Don’t add Fuel to the fire: Second solution to anger is to try & make the situation light. Always make sure you do not add fuel to anger & if someone else tries to do that just move away. Anger is a form of energy that can be extended by you or someone else, in which case we shouldn’t give anger a chance to increase. If we add negative thoughts to Anger it will be prolonged. Hence we have to decide, if at all we get angry till when do we have to be angry & what shall be the intensity of our anger. Everyone gets angry but if we are able to reduce its intensity (dilute it) then we have done our job. Let’s try to understand this with an example.

A person came to father of famous Hindi writer Kanhaiyalal Mishra “Prabhakar” early in the morning and for no apparent reasons started abusing him. While that person is abusing him, but he kept smiling throughout and didn’t lose his cool. Now if you are abusing someone & the other person keeps smiling then it’s nothing but usual that you may get angrier.

Sensing this Mr. Mishra stopped smiling and said calmly “Listen Sir, if you have said all you wanted to say then let’s go & take a walk across the street.”
To this, the person said – “what do you mean?”
“I mean let’s take a walk, till the corner of the road.”
“What’s there on the corner of the road?”
“There’s a Akhara (wrestling club).”
“What do you mean by Akhara (wrestling club).”
“See, you are in a mood to fight, so I’ll get someone there who can match you, because as you can see I am a weak!”

Listening to this, all the anger that person had was gone & he started smiling. To this Mr. Mishra said “That’s all to the corner of the road. Now that you are no longer in a mood to fight, let’s have a cup of tea together”. Now what do we see here? Here the other person tried to add the fuel, gave it a spark too but you are cautious all the time to pour water on the fire. That’s how you shall be prepared to make the moment light when there are all chances to get angry.

I will keep Quiet: This is a bit tough. If positive thinking is not working & you are not able to think of an alternate solution & energy can only be lightened by getting into an altercation, you really want to berate the other person then there’s only one thing I have to do & that’s to keep quiet. Because if you say a few things & the other person also says a few things then there are more chances of the argument taking a bigger shape & it’s difficult to handle such a situation. If I keep quiet then the external situation will be automatically quietened & internal disturbance will also subside in some time. Even the most intense arousal of anger cannot last more than forty eight minutes.

One more solution; Learn to Love: Develop a little bit of love towards one & all because one who’s mind is filled with true love cannot be angry with anyone. And one who gets angry cannot love.

The Projection Technique: Every person has someone in his life in front of which he doesn’t want to express his anger. He wants to present his best image in front of that person. It could be someone dear, it could be your Guru or for some it could be God (Bhagwan). Howsoever angry we may be, if that person comes in front of us, we would try to hide our anger; try to justify ourselves and in fact try to give up our anger while that person is there. Now what we have to do is to learn to project this person/ place’s image so that when we are angry with anyone, we place our dear one (in front of whom I can never get angry) in place of that person. The more we practice this projection, the earlier we’ll give up on our anger.

To summarize, Kshama (forbearance) comes only to the able-minded & the mighty. True test of Kshama is in a situation when there is every reason to be angry and you have the power and authority to be angry on the other person but you maintain your equanimity and practice Kshama.

Guruvarya Kshamasagarji Maharaj Ki Jai!

Our wishes on Paryushan to all the awardees and readers and special thanks toYogendra for compiling and translating the article. Watch out for the Post on Uttam Mardav Dharma.