"If your heart acquires strength, you will be able to remove blemishes from others without thinking evil of them." - Mohandas K. Gandhi
Is that how you forget and move on?
To you, what does he mean 'remove blemishes from others'.
2007-05-29 05:38:47 · 9 answers · asked by Gorgeoustxwoman2013 7 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Not a R/S question exactly. I know that there are people here I care about is why I have to put this here.
2007-05-29 05:39:58 · update #1
JP do you always accept the actions of others?
One of my flaws is wearing my heart on my sleeve. I feel deeply and it takes me a while to move on. Like I said, it is a flaw but it is also me.
2007-05-29 05:55:07 · update #2
Sèimerthyr I know you are right. It is us who suffer. Leting go of emotion is hard for me. I can lose the person hurting me but that pain lingers.
2007-05-29 05:59:22 · update #3
I think he's talking about forgiveness -- and the need for it to cease existing.
If someone wrongs me, I have two options -- hold a grudge or forgive them. Either way, I have allowed my heart to be troubled by the actions of another, by actions I had no control over.
Where is the benefit in this?
Is it then not better to live a life where one cannot be wronged, and therefore never has reason for grudge or forgiveness? To live a life where one accepts the actions of others for what they are, without judgement, is to accept all people as utterly without blemish.
The ultimate goal of accepting others is to move beyond grudges and forgiveness.
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I accept the causation and internal validity of that action to the actor. I need not accept that the action was ultimately good.
Some random guy comes up to me as I walk down the street and slugs me, breaking out a few teeth. He proceeds to beat me into a pulp, to the point I require hospitalization. For me, this is quite bad.
There was some reason in his mind, no matter how unfathomable it might be to me, that was good enough for him to do so. He could not have acted in any way other than the way he acted, I could not have been in any other place at the time, I could not have been any more or less injured than I was.
The past is set in stone, and as the past determines the present, and the present is the future's past, it's all stone -- everything is already determined. We just haven't caught up with all of it yet.
When one views the world deterministically (okay, stochaistically taking quantum randomness into account), blame becomes a non-issue.
Why should I blame the guy who beat me up for being in that place at that time doing the only thing he could do? It'd be as silly as blaming a computer for my bank account being in the red -- it didn't spend the money, it just did the computation.
2007-05-29 05:45:31 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Yes, I think so. Being a good example can do wonders, especially if one is compassionate about the "blemishes." Examples of blemishes are bad habits, mistaken notions, even inappropriate goals or values. It all depends on what can be a blemish worth removing from someone otherwise worthwhile, versus someone who is just evil enough not to be worth helping, but needs to be fought. That differs for each of us. I think a great soul like Gandhi could remove blemishes from most of the population of most of the prisons in the world. Not all of us have that kind of spiritual power, although he would probably argue that we could develop it if we tried.
2007-05-29 12:46:44 · answer #2 · answered by auntb93 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I think blemishes are in the eye of the beholder and not actually on the other person. The blemish is our view, our judgement. To try to remove it by will or force, to force them to change is to do it with our end goal in mind - and we will think evil of them.
Yet we remove these blemishes when we no longer judge others - a strength of the heart. The blemishes vanish when our judgement vanishes.
Often we hold something against someone, and they don't even know it. It is us, in our holding onto the thing who suffer.
2007-05-29 12:46:54 · answer #3 · answered by awayforabit 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
My interpretation would be somewhat like the Bible's scripture that is liberally translated as: Don't criticize the sliver in someone else's eye when you might have a log in your own. In other words, and in keeping with the quote by Gandhi, be a bigger person, a more loving or stronger person, by overlooking the faults of others. I think this teaches us to focus on being a better person instead of being critical of others.
2007-05-29 12:48:36 · answer #4 · answered by Misty 2 · 1⤊ 1⤋
I think its more along the lines of as you move forward in your spiritual path you will be able to find forgivness for the sins/wrong doing's of others (without forming an opinion of them) - which is true IMO
2007-05-29 12:48:50 · answer #5 · answered by Lee 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Although not familiar with the quote, we can assume the 'blemishes' are not physical.
He most likely was referring to other's weak points that irritate us.
2007-05-29 12:43:33 · answer #6 · answered by Uncle Thesis 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
"remove blemishes from others" to me means to see them in a different, kinder light.
2007-05-29 12:45:29 · answer #7 · answered by Black Rose 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I would agree with that. I think Buddhists are the only religious group who practice it.
2007-05-29 12:42:29 · answer #8 · answered by S K 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
that's very true....in general though,out of all the religious people i have met,only Buddhists seem to practice what they preach (not that they go around preaching anyway)! lol
2007-05-29 12:44:04 · answer #9 · answered by nicky 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋