Asking for forgiveness...and remembering not to repeat the mistake

We all know about asking for forgiveness after we have done something wrong. We truly feel remorse when we realise that we have hurt those who love us. We feel guilty and upset when something goes wrong as a result of a bad decision we made. When that happens we ask for forgiveness from the person who has been wronged and from Kanha. However, we have to remember that although there is a saying that we should 'forgive and forget' that the forgetfulness does not come easily to most person. even if they do forgive us, they are not likely to forget. We also should not forget our mistakes. We should remember that when we ask for forgiveness, the other person and Kanha are expecting us to never repeat the same mistake. So, those of us who ask for forgiveness are expected to never repeat the mistake again. When we ask for forgiveness we should learn from the mistake we made and when we forgive we should forget the mistake the other person made. However, as I mentioned before, forgetting may not be as easy as it sounds. In reality if we cannot forget the mistake the other has made or whatever they have done to hurt us, we should try to learn from the other person's mistake. We should try to alter our behaviour so that we never commit that mistake and so never hurt others in that way. So in summary, the lessons to be learned are: 1. Admit when you are wrong and ask for forgiveness - many times we are too proud to admit that we were in fact wrong and we damage relationships further by failing to admit that. 2. Ask for forgiveness and learn from the mistake so that we never commit it again. 3. Forgive and learn and do not bring up the other person's mistake to hurt them. Again, sometimes we forgive and then we remind the person of what they did. This is hurtful and in itself is wrong since it displays that we did not really forgive the person. I chose the picture showing Kanha offering us some of His butter because to me this is the ultimate act of forgiveness to us, that He still wants us to partake of His prasad. Overall we should remember that Kanha forgives us but He expects better of us in the future. He expects us to do what is right and to be good people and to want to be good people above all else. Let us change our attitudes a little today so that we do not have to ask for forgiveness as much. Jai Shri Krishna!