What is forgiveness? What is compassion? || Acharya Prashant (2019)

Questioner: Dear Acharya Ji, Pranaam! Today I was reading about brain and conditioning. Our brain is affected by moment-to-moment experiences, these experiences put the brain in a certain form. And these experiences also bring about certain deformities in the brain.

I have some memories of people in my brain that do not allow me to feel free. I feel a certain uneasiness when I think about them. What is ‘forgiveness’? What is daya, or compassion? Kindly show me light on this.

Acharya Prashant: Parmeshwari (the questioner), ‘forgiveness’ is – not having the need to forgive.

Forgiveness is – to not have the need to forgive.

As long as there is a need to forgive, it means you are still sticking to the small things in the brain. Hurts, distortions, you are still talking about those little things.

You feel offended. Because you feel offended, so the question of forgiving the other person arises- “Should I forgive? Should I not forgive?”

Real forgiveness is when you have gone beyond the little things of the brain and have totally forgotten the hurt.