The quality of Forgiveness that burns up all things except Beauty is the quality of Love.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
Nature is such that no two things are created alike; and human beings cannot expect their mates, whom nature made, to be as docile and flexible as that creature whom their imaginations alone conceive. To make a friend, forgiveness is required which burns up all things, leaving only beauty.
Love is the fire that burns all infirmities. … By criticizing, by judging, by looking at wickedness with contempt, we do not help the wicked or the stupid. Those who help are those who are ready to overlook, who are ready to forgive, to tolerate, to take disadvantages they may have to meet with patiently.
To resist evil, however, usually means to participate in and be guilty of the same evil. There is a story told of Muhammad, that a man who had always maligned him and behaved as a bitter and treacherous enemy, came to see him. His disciples, hoping for revenge, were disappointed and indignant to find that Muhammad treated his despicable enemy with courtesy, even deference, granting his request. ‘Did you not see the gray in his beard?’ asked Muhammad after the man had gone. ‘The man is old, and his age at least called for my courtesy.’ It is forgiveness and that forbearance which is a recognition of the freedom and dignity of the human being, that consume all ugliness and burn up all unworthiness, leaving only beauty there.
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
This Love is that which removes the boundaries between self and self. When there is no longer a this-self and that-self, there can no longer be pain of separation. This brings about pure Forgiveness — not something mental, not a changed attitude of mind, but a changed attitude of heart.