God and His Creation Plan

If you make a mistake that arouses anger in another, but then you repent and say, ‘Please forgive me, I was wrong,’ this will certainly cause the aggrieved person to undergo a change of heart. Such an apology will, on the one hand, inculcate positivity in your soul and, on the other hand, it will promote a culture of love among people you are living with. In family life as well as social life, untoward events are unavoidable. Such happenings sour relations and create distance between people. The best solution is to repent sincerely. Do not wait for others to take the lead. If, after doing an evil deed, one chooses to continue on the same path, it makes a person even more inclined to evil. On the contrary, engaging in introspection would cause him to make up his mind not to indulge in evil again. If he does so, the evil deed he commits becomes a cause of leading him to goodness. Repentance is an instrument of self-correction, initiating a process of self-assessment. This process is vital, as it enhances your intellectual calibre and leads to spiritual development. Repentance is an inner spirit, a readiness to atone for every kind of mistake. The source of repentance is one’s conscience (zameer). It is not possible that a person does something wrong and that his conscience does not get affected by it. The only condition is that a person should be honest with his conscience so that he does not neglect the voice of his conscience. Gandhi used to say, “Thus my inner sight speaks”, and when this inner sight speaks, one must pay heed to it. There is no other criterion for sincere repentance. What to do if we have wronged someone? I f you have wronged another person, the foremost thing to do is to seek earnest forgiveness but if it is not accepted, the one repenting must pray for the betterment of the person he has wronged. How would we get to know that God has accepted our repentance? Repentance is not a temporary act. A person keeps thinking about the mistake he made and this feeling of having made a mistake remains alive. Repentance is a continuous process. It is a completely unilateral act, because granting of forgiveness lies in the domain of God. When something is in God’s domain, man can never demand bilateralism. Honest repentance stays in your heart your entire life and one always reflects on it. If a person considers that his repentance has been accepted fully but continues to lead life as before, he will make no reform in his lifestyle. It will not be true repentance. True repentance transforms an individual.