The Forest of Enchantments

by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

ephemeral

If you want to stand up against wrongdoing, if you want to bring about change, do it in a way that doesn’t bruise a man’s pride. You’ll have a better chance of success.’

We come into the world alone, and we leave it alone. And in between, too, if it is destined, we’ll be alone. Draw on your inner strength. Remember, you can be your own worst enemy—or your best friend. It’s up to you. And also this: what you can’t change, you must endure.’

But already I was learning that I had to carefully choose the time and place for frank talk.

Such was love’s magic—the giver gained more than the receiver.

This is what Kaikeyi failed to see: it’s not enough to merely love someone. Even if we love them with our entire being, even if we’re willing to commit the most heinous sin for their well-being. We must understand and respect the values that drive them. We must want what they want, not what we want for them.

Or perhaps we must all experience a moment of solemnity at the passing of great power, no matter how ill-directed it has been.

Perhaps that was why I had to endure pain—because true transformation can only happen in the crucible of suffering. All impurities fall away from gold only when it’s heated to melting.

Forgiveness is more difficult when love is involved.

How, without detaching ourselves from the spell of the past, can we focus fully on the moment that faces us?

The laws of karma were complicated, and ultimately, one never escaped them.

No one can take your dignity away from you. You lose it only by your own actions.’

I couldn’t control what was done to me. But my response to it was in my control.

I pondered the word endure, what it meant. It didn’t mean giving in. It didn’t mean being weak or accepting injustice. It meant taking the challenges thrown at us and dealing with them as intelligently as we knew until we grew stronger than them.

Motherhood taught me something new about love. It was the one relationship where you gave everything you had and then wished you had more to give.

anger gives out a powerful vibration even when it’s wordless.