Decide to Forgive
Friday 24 Oct 2003

~ Idea 1299 ~
30 January 1998

On this anniversary day of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, a Season of Non-violence in the World was opened until 4 April 1998, anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King.  We held memorial services at the Monument of Peace and at the Gandhi monument of the UN University for Peace, during which we gave our views on how to achieve in the next century a civilization of peace and non-violence.  The following text was distributed:
The Need to Forgive

Jesus on the cross asked the Father in heaven to forgive those who crucified him.

Mahatma (the Great Soul) Gandhi, as he was shot in his garden, on the way to prayer, exclaimed: "O God, forgive him."

Pope John Paul II went to the prison cell to pray with his intended assassin.

Nelson Mandela, when he was inaugurated president of South Africa, had his jailer at his side on the platform during the ceremony.

Martin Luther King said: "Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you."

I prepared and distributed the following text and anecdotes:

Decide to Forgive

Decide to Forgive
For resentment is negative
Resentment is poisonous
Resentment diminishes
and devours the self.
Be the first to forgive,
to smile and to take
the first step,
And you will see happiness bloom
On the face of your human brother
or sister,
Be always the first
Do not wait for others
to forgive
For by forgiving
You become the master of fate
The fashioner of life
The doer of miracles.
To forgive is the highest,
most beautiful form
of love.
In return you will receive
untold peace
and happiness.

- Robert Muller


Two years ago, John Denver visited me at the University for Peace, on his way to sing for hope to young people around the world.  In my little wooden cabin he went to the bathroom and I was waiting for him outside.  He came out, with tears in his eyes and said to me: "Robert, you have rendered me a great service."  I looked at him surprised, and he answered: "I read your text hanging on a wall, 'Decide to Forgive' and it gave me the answer to a nightmare I am going through: my Australian wife has abandoned me, taking with her our daughter.  I was desperate and did not know what to do.  You gave me the answer: I forgive her."

Also, after a speech somewhere in the world, a lady approached me and said: "Mr. Muller, I was in Hawaii where I found your poem 'Decide to Forgive'.  It changed my life because I decided to forgive the people who killed my husband.  Ever since I do good work for the world and I found peace and happiness."

I announced that the Peace Monument of the University will henceforth be a monument to all known and unknown peacemakers in the world and a memorial to all peacemakers and peacekeeping personnel of the United Nations who lost their lives in the service of peace.

I proposed that the United Nations should proclaim 30 January as an International Day of Visions and Dreams in memory of Gandhi and Martin Luther King who had both such great visions and dreams for a bettter world.

- From Robert's Muller's Ideas And Dreams For A Better World < http://www.robertmuller.org >  at the Ideas & Dreams links and also available from the Good Morning World Store < http://www.goodmorningworld.org/store > .
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In the vast universe, we humans are true kings, almost Gods.  We know so much, feel so much, dream so much, query so much, discover so much.  We will not rest until we see, know, feel and understand all there is in the heavens and on Earth.  We unquestionably are of a cosmic nature.  We want to reach the outer expanses of the universe.  We are a transcending species capable of lifting itself beyond its capacities and senses by a universal urge.  We are stupendous little nebulas of life on a tiny, solid, watery, warm planet, trying to reach out for the stars and the outer limits of heaven.  What a prodigious species we are!  What an exciting adventure it is to be human!  What a teeming laboratory, what a palace full of treasures our planet is in the vast universe!


- Page 13, The Miracle, Joy and Art of Living: My Testament to Life, Volume I