Jain Scripture Total and absolute forgiveness takes years of practice in humility, compassion, sympathy, understanding, tolerance and sensitivity to fellow beings. We can never acquire these virtues until we start melting our ego. And that is one of the reasons forgiveness is well recognized, but rarely practiced in its noblest form. Some how if we admit our mistakes, we feel we have gone down. We have lost our self respect, self esteem.
Most people are intelligent enough to know when they make mistakes.
Their pride makes it difficult to admit them. If we can understand these weaknesses, perhaps we will be a bit more tolerant and compassionate to our fellow human beings. Since our pride and ego usually come in the way of forgiving some one, let us make use of a common friend to overcome that obstacle. All we need to do is take the initiative. When we say I forgive you, we should not imply that the other person is guilty.