Students today are completely lost in studies which are worldly- and ephemeral. Spiritual
knowledge is ridiculed. Spirituality is treated as a kind of hysteria.
Once an ochre-robed person, was going in a bazaar. School boys and college students followed
him, talking flippantly about him. He took no notice of them. He was proceeding from one
village to another. The students indulged in all kinds of abusive language with a view to
provoking the mendicant. But the mendicant walked on and sat under a tree on the outskirts of
the village.
The students went on railing at him and exhausted all their stock of abuse. As they were silent
the mendicant asked them, "Children, have you any more words to be used against me? Come
out with them even now, as I have to go to the next village."
One insolent youth among them
asked: "What will happen when you go to the next village?"
The mendicant replied' "Child, I will
do nothing. Praise or blame attaches only to this body and not to my Self. But there are in the
next village a large number of people who have high regard for me. If you indulge in your abuses
of me there, the villagers will trash you. To save you from this experience I am informing you in
advance."
On hearing this, the students had a change of heart. They felt: "In spite of all the
abuses we levelled at him, this noble being was totally unaffected, did not lose his temper and
taught us the right behaviour."
They prostrated at the feet of the mendicant and craved for his
Kshama (forgiveness).
To forgive is Divine
Forgiveness is a quality that every man should possess. That forgiveness is Truth itself, it is
Righteousness, it is the Vedha. It is the supreme virtue in this world. Hence, all people should
develop the quality of forgiveness. People should remain unaffected by what others may say. A
true man is one who overcomes the ups and downs of life with fortitude. One should not recoil
before reverses of fortune.
(From the Divine Discourses of Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba)
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