36 How can I forgive those who have hurt me – Gita 11.55
Hare Krishna!
Welcome to the continuation of our Gita Key Verses course. Today, we will delve into the topic of forgiveness. As we progress through the Gita, we encounter various subjects addressed at different times, based on the relevant verses. Today, we’ll focus on a significant theme: How can we forgive those who have hurt us?
This discussion is based on Bhagavad Gita 11.55:
“mat-karma-kṛn mat-paramo mad-bhaktaḥ saṅga-varjitaḥ
nirvairaḥ sarva-bhūteṣu yaḥ sa mām eti pāṇḍava”
The key phrase here is nirvairaḥ sarva-bhūteṣu—being free from animosity toward all beings. Krishna emphasizes that one who works for Him, is free from envy and aversion, and lives with a selfless attitude can attain Him. This concept of “no aversion” is central to our discussion today.
We will address two key points:
- How can forgiveness and war go together?
- Is the Gita a call for violence?
Additionally, we will explore how the wisdom of the Gita helps us forgive at the levels of intention, emotion, and action.
1. Forgiveness and War: How Can They Coexist?
The Bhagavad Gita presents a fascinating juxtaposition in Chapter 11, titled “The Universal Form.” This chapter is both the most visually vivid and explicitly violent section of the text. It describes the Vishwaroopa, the universal form of Krishna, devouring living beings, and includes clear instructions to Arjuna to rise, fight, and attain victory:
“tasmāt tvam uttiṣṭha yaśo labhasva
jitvā śatrūn bhuṅkṣva rājyaṁ samṛddham”
(BG 11.33)
(“Therefore, arise, attain glory, conquer your enemies, and enjoy a prosperous kingdom.”)
Yet, the chapter ends with the verse that emphasizes nirvairah sarvabhuteṣu—to bear no animosity toward anyone. On the surface, this seems contradictory: how can Krishna call for both war and forgiveness?
Reconciling the Paradox
This is not a contradiction but a paradox. A paradox appears contradictory at first glance but reveals a deeper harmony upon closer examination. Krishna is instructing Arjuna to fight, but not out of revenge. The purpose of the war is to establish dharma (righteousness).
When Krishna says nirvairah, He emphasizes that Arjuna’s battle is not to settle personal scores with the Kauravas but to fulfill a higher purpose—restoring order in society. In this sense, Arjuna is meant to be an instrument of divine will, neutralizing the forces of disorder, much like a surgeon amputates a diseased limb—not out of hatred, but to save the body.
This principle is often expressed as: “Hate the sin, not the sinner.” Krishna’s call to fight is thus clinical and dispassionate—a duty performed without personal animosity.
2. Is the Gita a Call for Violence?
The idea that the Bhagavad Gita promotes violence is one of the most misunderstood aspects of the text. To address this, let’s examine three aspects:
- Content of the Gita
- Context of the Gita
- Consequence of the Gita
Content of the Gita
The Gita contains no hate speech, no reminders of past atrocities, and no calls for revenge. Instead, it repeatedly advocates dispassionate action. In moments of conflict, emotions like anger and hatred often drive people to violence. Riots, for example, are often incited by emotional triggers, such as reminders of past wrongs.
If Krishna wanted to incite Arjuna emotionally, He could have referenced the many injustices the Pandavas had suffered—such as Draupadi’s dishonor—but He does not mention them even once. Instead, Krishna calls for equanimity and detachment, emphasizing selfless duty over emotional reaction.
For example, Krishna says:
“nirmamo nirahaṅkāraḥ saṅga-varjitaḥ
yudhyasva vigata-jvaraḥ”
(BG 3.30)
(“Free from possessiveness, ego, and attachment, fight without agitation or feverishness.”)
This verse makes it clear that Krishna’s call to fight is not driven by ego, revenge, or material attachment, but by a sense of duty aligned with higher spiritual consciousness.
Context of the Gita
The war at Kurukshetra was not a rash or impulsive decision. Both human and divine efforts were made to prevent it. The Pandavas sought peace despite being wronged repeatedly, even proposing a compromise of five villages instead of their rightful half of the kingdom. Krishna Himself served as a peace envoy, yet Duryodhana rejected all peace proposals and even attempted to imprison Krishna.
At this point, war was the only remaining option to restore dharma. Thus, the Gita’s call for battle was contextual, not a universal message of violence.
Consequence of the Gita
The ultimate message of the Gita is not about destruction but transformation. Arjuna’s battle was a specific, time-bound duty, and Krishna’s teachings empowered him to act selflessly and dispassionately. The Gita’s broader spiritual teachings guide humanity toward peace, harmony, and inner growth.
Forgiving in Intention, Emotion, and Action
From a practical perspective, the Gita’s wisdom helps us forgive at multiple levels:
- Intention: Forgiveness begins with a commitment to rise above negative emotions. By understanding that everyone acts under the influence of their own conditioning and ignorance, we can let go of the intent to harm others in return.
- Emotion: Emotionally, forgiveness requires freeing our hearts from resentment. This doesn’t mean condoning wrongdoing but recognizing that holding onto anger only burdens us.
- Action: Forgiveness in action involves responding appropriately to situations, not out of revenge but with a sense of duty and justice. For Arjuna, fighting in the war was an act of duty, not hatred. For us, it may mean setting boundaries or taking necessary steps to prevent harm while maintaining inner peace.
So, this is the extent to which they were ready for even a symbolic reconciliation, not even a just reconciliation. But even that was rejected by Duryodhana. So, now if you look at the long-term consequence, the immediate consequence was that Arjuna fought a war. But the Gita has been a book that has influenced millions or more than a millennium, for many millennia. And there are many commentators who have commented on the Gita, several hundred commentators in Sanskrit, and many, many in English. So, now none of the more prominent traditional commentators in the Gita have used the Gita to justify violence, have said that the Gita calls people, calls its readers, or they didn’t say that their followers should resort to violence. Although, if you consider, there was a reason for that. At the time of most of the prominent commentators in the Gita—Madhavacharya, Ramacharya, Vishnachik Thakur—India was ruled by invaders who were quite violent and plundering and destroying the spiritual culture of India. And the commentators didn’t use the Gita to justify violence against them. They didn’t say that the Gita’s message is that you should fight.
So, what is the point over here? The Gita’s essential message is neither of silence nor of violence. It is transcendence. So, each one of us needs to individually pursue transcendence. And whatever be the way to transcendence, that is what we need to follow. So, for example, sometimes the way to transcendence is by silence or tolerance. In this world, there are always some problems in the world. Don’t get caught in all of them. That is one way to pursue transcendence. Another time, it might require that we have to be assertive and sometimes we have to be aggressive. But the point of the Gita is neither silence nor violence. The point of the Gita is to pursue transcendence. That is its essential message. And that is what has inspired millions of people who have studied the Bhagavad Gita throughout history and even the many, many who are inspired by the Gita’s study now.
So, why the battlefield setting? Because it demonstrates how transcendence can be pursued even in the most unlikely of settings—that is, a battlefield.
So, now with this, let’s move on to understand how… The first two parts were preliminary. This is the take-off point for our core discussion today. How do we reconcile, or how can we actually go about forgiving those who have hurt us? And when should we forgive? When should we not forgive? Is forgiving helpful, or can it be harmful if the other person continues to exploit and abuse us? So, that’s what we will discuss today. And for that, we will first understand what is the point of forgiveness? Sometimes we feel the other person is not seeking forgiveness. The other person doesn’t deserve forgiveness. Now, in this case, when we are talking about forgiveness, we are presuming here that we have actually been wronged and the other person is the wrongdoer. So, it could be that our perception is wrong, and we also may have done some wrongs. So, then, if we have played some part in it, it is for us also to seek forgiveness. That is going to be the focus of our discussion. Because in the case of the Pandavas and the Kauravas, which is our take-off point for the discussion in the Gita, it is not that the Pandavas were… The Pandavas had repeatedly exhibited tolerance and they had been repeatedly subjected to atrocities. So, when we are seeking to forgive someone, the point is not so much whether that person deserves forgiveness or not. The point is that we deserve to forgive so that we free ourselves from our past and we free ourselves for the future.
So, is it self-centered? Well, it is not self-centered. The point is, it is a form of self-care. It is not forgiving; it is continuing to hurt ourselves. It is like carrying not just a heavy burden unnecessarily on our back. It is like carrying a burning burden inside our heart. It’s a burning burden. It’s like a fiery… Suppose we are carrying a thin bag filled with burning coal in it, and we keep it held tightly to our chest. Some bags are like backpacks which are put on the backside. Some bags are put on the front side. So, imagine this is a bag strapped tightly onto our chest and the bag is filled with burning coal. So holding on to vengefulness is like keeping that bag strapped to our chest. And why are we keeping it there? Because we are waiting for the right time when we find the other person, we will take the coal from there and throw it at that person. Well, we may or may not find that person. We may or may not hit that person. We may or may not hurt that person, but we are hurting ourselves far more.
So, forgiving is meant to take that bag off our chest and throw it away. So, that is the primary purpose of forgiveness. So, relieving the past hurts us actually more than the past itself. However, the past hurts us, relieving the past hurts us more. So, just as when a person is bitten by a snake, the snakebite doesn’t actually kill the person. The snake venom spreading through the body kills the person. Similarly, it is not that when people do… people abuse us, that hurts us. It hurts us, no doubt. But what hurts us far more is the repeated recollecting and resenting what they have done to us. So, we need to move on for our own good.
Now, while moving on, we need to look at forgiveness at three levels. There is intention, emotion, and action. And these three levels can broadly correspond with three levels of our being. There is the soul, the mind, and the body. So, it is the soul that means we, as spiritual beings, have to make a conscious decision to turn away from vengefulness, resentfulness, and to make the decision to forgive. So, that intention has to come from the soul.
Then, at the level of the mind, emotion means we feel that emotion of forgiveness. When we forgive, actually our heart becomes unburdened. We feel a sense of relief. That’s one aspect of forgiveness. And then there is the practical aspect of what do we do when we forgive someone. What does it mean practically? So, quite often forgiving becomes difficult because we don’t dissect it into these three parts. We often equate the three. Among these three, often the second takes a lot of time, and the third takes a lot of thought to decide, when I forgive, what does it mean? What do I do practically? But because the second takes a lot of time and the third takes a lot of thought, we don’t even do the first. The first is—that means to feel the emotion of forgiveness—and the resulting healing from that takes time. And to decide, to figure out, okay, if I forgive this person, how do I go ahead after that? Do I just let this person go scot-free? Do I hold them accountable in some way? Do I distance myself from them? What do I do exactly when I forgive? So that action has to require thought. So, because of this needing time and thought for the emotional and practical aspects of forgiveness, we don’t even make the resolve to forgive. That intention itself doesn’t come, but things have to begin with the intention.
So now, what do we mean by intention? I’ve already talked about this earlier—that for not forgiving hurts us. The heaviest thing to hold is a grudge. It burdens us; it doesn’t just burden us like the example of coal I gave, it burdens and burns us. So, when we refuse to forgive someone, we give them rent-free space in our heart. That’s why we need to—at least resolve, I’m hurting myself more than I’m hurting others, so I must forgive. That’s the intention part.
Then, when we move to the emotion part, what does it mean over here? See, emotional wounds take time to heal. All that we can do is we don’t aggravate them. Just like if we were involved in a physical altercation with someone, if somebody attacked us physically, and say we had a fracture to a particular—maybe an arm or a leg—now that fracture is going to take its time to heal. Even if that person comes and apologizes and we forgive, that doesn’t mean the fracture is going to immediately and magically heal itself. No, if there’s a physical wound, it takes time to heal, and the same principle applies to emotional wounds also. Emotional wounds also take time to heal. So, therefore, we need to be patient with ourselves. We can’t expect that, okay, I have decided to forgive, so automatically I’ll start feeling relief, feeling the sense of relief or release or healing. It will take time. But what we also do—say if we have a fracture, we have a physical wound like that—we don’t aggravate the wound. Say if our forearm is fractured, we won’t deliberately bang the forearm again and again on our arm. We will move it very cautiously. So, physical wounds will never aggravate, but unfortunately, emotional wounds we often aggravate by replaying them again and again and again and again. So, replaying those incidents where we were hurt is like physically hurting ourselves at the very point where we have been hurt. And that’s why the emotional wounds may take far longer to heal than physical wounds.
So it is replaying again and again that aggravates. That’s what we need to try to avoid. So now spirituality can give us a higher vision, a higher purpose, and that’s what the Gita tries to offer all of us. So now we need to understand that we have a horizontal relationship with each other. We have discussed this theme earlier. And we have a vertical relationship with Krishna. So we need to focus on the vertical relationship by which we get strength. So this was also… it begins, 11:55 begins with a focus on the vertical relationship. Matkarmakrun Matparamo—that work for me, make me your goal.
So if any relationship has become our defining relationship, has become our source of soul, source of self-worth, and self-identity, then disruption in that relationship will be unbearable. Why? Because that’s how it is—that we have no… that relationship is only going to define who we are, and if there is rejection in that relationship, if there is exploitation in that relationship, then it warps and distorts and diminishes our very sense of self-worth, our sense of self, our sense of self-esteem, self-worth. That’s why, yes, we have various relationships and how we interact in those relationships does affect how we are perceived by others, how we perceive ourselves. But those relationships cannot be the basis of our self-worth. We need to know that whatever happens, whatever anyone does to us, we are still precious parts of Krishna. We are loved by Krishna so much that each one of us is still an abode for the divine. Krishna still will be present with us in our hearts.
When we understand this, then we feel inspired. That is my primary relationship, and my primary purpose is to develop that relationship, nourish and enrich that relationship. And then how do I deal with this relationship while nourishing that relationship? So we get the emotional stability by making our relationship with Krishna our primary source of strength.
There are many books that talk about forgiveness, and there are many seminars in the self-help world nowadays. Forgiveness is a big subject, and forgiveness is also an area where science and spirituality are strongly intersecting. Because among the various areas where scientific evidence is available for the healing effects of a particular thing, forgiving is the strongest. Say, for example, if somebody does meditation, does it benefit people? Yes, it does. There is data for that. And like that, there are many other things which we could say are associated with spirituality and they provide benefit. But the strongest evidence is available for forgiveness. Lots of research shows that we should forgive. So forgiveness research is one of the most promising areas of research in healing at the emotional level, of how healing even at the physical level can be promoted by some emotional… by some activity which is also associated with spirituality—that is forgiving.
So now science can tell us how beneficial it is to forgive, but often it can’t really provide us the means to forgive. And even they say, okay, forget that thing, and some people may say, okay, you know, you take that person who has… just bring some closure in some way. So take that person’s picture who has hurt you, tear it, and throw it into the flesh. Well, and just similarly, take that as a metaphor for flushing that person out of your life. Well, okay, some people may feel that it helps them, but you know, unless there is a higher vision and a higher purpose, and most importantly, a higher relationship, you have to apply these principles of forgiveness.
So once we connect with Krishna through our Bhakti practices, we get the emotional strength by which we can better manage the turbulent emotions that might come because of turbulence in our other relationships. So then we are better positioned to forgive.
So intention is something which we need to have, and the intention will begin the process of emotional healing, but the feeling of relief that we get when we forgive someone may not come easily or immediately, and we need to be patient with ourselves. Even after we make the intention, or make the resolve to forgive someone, still when we see that person, we might still feel annoyed, we might still feel angered, and we need to be patient. But we need to also redirect our thoughts and emotions elsewhere so that we don’t dwell on that too much.
So how do we deal with them at the practical level? This is often, as I said, this requires a lot of thought to understand.
So the first thing here to understand is that forgiving is not the same as trusting. The two are very different, and what is the primary difference? Forgiving is for the past wrongs that they have done, whereas trusting is for the future. Forgiveness can and should always be given, but trust has to be earned.
So at a simple level, if we consider, say, we lend somebody some money and they just lost it and now they say, “Oh, I don’t have it, I can’t return it,” and say, “No, money is important for us,” and especially that money was something which we really needed, and we are in a lot of trouble because they are not able to give that money back to us, so we may still… we may say, “Okay, I’ll forgive you,” but we would be naive and foolish to again give them money if they ask it again. So they have to show some responsibility. They have to show some indication that they are ready to reform, they have to earn trust.
So we forgive for the past, but forgiving when we equal it with trusting normally makes forgiving seem difficult. It also becomes dangerous because then we set ourselves up for further abuse or exploitation.
So based on this differentiation between forgiving and trusting, there can be three ways of doing the action of forgiving. First is we forgive but we withhold trust. Second is we forgive and trust. Third is we forgive with intention but then we pursue some kind of disciplinary action, some kind of punishment in action.
So let’s look at this. We’ll begin with the second and then go to the first because the second is the normal stage where we can be once we make the intention to forgive, and then we will, depending on that person’s response, we may move from forgiving but not trusting.
Now, the other option. So let’s look at some examples. So I’ll talk about incidents from our epics and then we’ll look at it from something from our practical lives also. This is the story of the appearance of Krishna. Kamsa killed brutally six of the previous children of Devaki, and he killed them brutally right in front of the eyes of the parents. It was horrendous. It was, and he not only killed the babies, he killed them in front of the parents, but he killed them in front of the parents also in a brutal way. Not even a painless death. It was just he took the baby and smashed the baby’s head against a stone right in front of the parents. So he had done horrendous things, and when the eighth child was born, at that time, what did he do? He wanted to do the same thing, but that eighth child turned out to be a girl, and that girl was especially slippery. She slipped out of his hands and she didn’t fall. She rose high into the sky and she mocked him. She said, “You fool.” He turned out to be the goddess, and in fact, this goddess was the very goddess whom Kamsa would worship. In the Vedic times, the Cognac people would do acts of worship. Why? Because for them, worship was not a religious activity. Worship was a power-seeking activity.
So having Brahmin priests who would help them to worship, that was more or less like an activity by which they sought power. So many of the priests in the Vedic times were less what we would call as religionists today and more like technologists. They were like, just as every country, whether it is on the side of good or on the side of bad, will have its own scientists and technologists who help develop weapons. Similarly, Kamsa also had his Brahmin priests, and he used to do worship according to their direction, by which he hoped to gain power.
So the point is, he worshipped the goddess, and he thought, “Oh, if this goddess whom I worship has appeared from the womb of Devaki, that means Devaki must be a special lady.” And then he started thinking, “If Devaki is such a special lady, I did a great wrong by killing her children.” And then he sought forgiveness from Devaki and Vasudeva, and he told them, “Actually, how heartless have I been to kill your children, who are my cousins, or my nephews rather?” He lamented and sought forgiveness.
It’s interesting that the Bhagavatam says that Vasudeva and Devaki forgave him, but at the same time, they didn’t trust him. How do we know that they didn’t trust him? They didn’t tell him, “Actually, the eighth child is in Vrindavan. We took him last night and kept him in Vrindavan.” No, they couldn’t tell him because he had yet to earn trust. He was acting in a devious way. He had acted in a vicious way for so many times in the past, and whether his present forgiveness was genuine or not, they couldn’t be sure.
So in principle, they forgave him, but in action, they withheld trust. And of course, Kamsa showed that he was not trustworthy because soon he changed his disposition and went on a rampage, seeking to kill all newborn children in their vicinity. He attempted to kill Krishna repeatedly, and eventually, he had to be neutralized by Krishna. But at least at this point, when he sought forgiveness, the parents of Krishna also gave him forgiveness. But our trust here is to understand that we may forgive but withhold trust.
So how would this go about practically? That means that different relationships work well at different distances. So if somebody has hurt us, then we may not be able to have the same emotional proximity in the relationship. We may not be able to have the same emotional distance, or we might sometimes even keep physical distance. It’s like going back to the earlier example of the wound: if, say, the hand has been injured, then normally the doctors might recommend, if it’s a fracture, keep it in a cast so that it doesn’t move too much. So there has to be a certain phase of immobility and inactivity by which healing takes place.
Similarly, we might need to create some physical distance or at least some emotional distance so that we observe them from that safe distance and see how they are acting. If they act in such a way that gives us some reassurance that they have changed for real, then we can forgive as well as trust.
Now, there could be situations where they somehow don’t change. That means that they seek forgiveness or sometimes they don’t even seek forgiveness, but still, we forgive with intention. However, if they repeatedly do wrong things, we have to take assertive action.
So how might this happen? This is seen in the Kurukshetra war itself. Before that, the Pandavas were repeatedly subjected to atrocities by the Kauravas. Bhima was poisoned when he was just a teenager, and he was furious. But Yudhishthira told him, “This is a family matter. Let’s not make it too big. Let’s just be careful in the future.” But then things became worse. They tried to have the Pandavas burned alive, and not just once, but twice.
It was a bold and brazen attempt, and yet, the Pandavas emerged stronger as a result. Though they initially fled, they eventually secured Draupadi’s hand in marriage. They formed an alliance with her father, King Drupada, a powerful ruler. Even after all of this, the Pandavas did not hold a grudge or bring up the fact that the Kauravas had tried to assassinate them. They chose not to mention this treacherous act, even though they had every right to.