What I Learned About Forgiveness from Dada J.P. Vaswani
I was raised by church going parents who gave me the complete Catholic education from grade school and into College. Spirituality was always a part of my life whether I understood it or not the virtuous seeds of love, forgiveness, compassion and gratitude were planted deep within my heart. By the time I was 20 something, I had some strong decisions to make that weighed heavy on my heart. This led me to a daily yoga practice, study, work and about 15 years later to my husband Amit. His family's Guru Dada J.P. Vaswani from the Sadhu Vaswani Mission in Pune, India came once a year to the New York/New Jersey area where I live. I was lucky enough to meet with Dada when he came to town, invite my friends to meet him plus support Dada's events in my area in anyway I could. I felt privileged and honored to be so close to a holy man such as Dada.
As the years went by I was asked to do a little more. I always jumped to it because all I saw was good when it came to Dada and the Mission. The Mission was aware of my blog Glamorous Yogini and asked me to write a post about Forgiveness. It was explained to me that August 2nd is Dada's birthday and it is his wish at 2pm wherever you are in the world on that day for 2 minutes to reflect on forgiving someone. This day has become Global Forgiveness Day. Imagine this wave of positivity! Sadly I was not able to write that Forgiveness post. I remember writing to my friends at The Sadhu Vaswani Mission saying I was sorry and was practicing forgiving myself for not doing it. I share this with you because finding forgiveness is not easy. Having this feeling to push forgiving another to the side is a very human and real response.
I eventually came to learn the power that comes with embodying the teaching of forgiveness. This enabled me to write about forgiveness and I now find it to be an easier topic to ponder. I say this after meeting Dada several years ago. Here he told me it is very important to forgive if you are looking to transform and move forward in your life. If you don't forgive you carry a heavy burden within your heart. A wound that hurts only one person and that person is you. Your peace and happiness is waiting for you. You have a choice to find it if you let go.
Fortunately Dada has written countless books on the topic plus there's YouTube clips you can listen to. I hope this personal account has inspired you to participate in finding forgiveness this coming Friday August 2nd at 2pm for 2 minutes. Please visit momentofcalm.org to learn more about Global Forgiveness Day.
