Pray for Tormentors

A friend asked me recently what to do when people torment us by speaking cruel words to us. I thought of how Tony Robbins used to say that if someone treats you unkindly, you should think, "That person must be so unhappy. Otherwise, how could he treat people that way?" First of all, because we are followers of Lord Caitanya, we should think, "Trnad api sunicena..." that we should be humbler than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree, and remember that everything that comes to us we deserve, plus more. In other words, we should remember that because we are trying to dedicate ourselves to uncovering our love for Krsna, Krsna is minimizing our karmic reactions. We can pray to Krsna to teach us the lessons we need to learn so that we will not become disturbed by such ill treatment.

We can also pray for such persons that Krsna will kindly teach them the lessons they need to learn to be able to fully uncover their love for Krsna in their present lifetimes and return back home, back to Godhead. Even if they are tough, painful lessons, we need to be okay with praying for whatever Krsna needs to do to help those people learn their lessons. This is called tough love. There should be no vindictiveness or vengeance in our hearts when we pray like that. It should be a pure prayer, spoken with compassion, love and sincere desire for their welfare. Such compassionate prayers make room in our hearts for the ability to forgive our tormentors and wish them well.