A Four-letter Word

Thanks again to Maria, and cherished friends in common...

Hate? What?

These were my first thoughts when requested of to write about what we ‘hate’ or ‘fear’, which can be the same, though are not always (or I’ve had a tough time equating them), as mentioned by our Dalai Lama*.

After spending hours thinking and as the days passed quickly to when I felt I must get this out, the only logical place to look was Neale Donald Walsch and Humanity’s Team pages to enter the keyword and see what came up.

At first I was surprised being asked to write about the word at all, a four-letter-word that enlightened beings aren’t supposed to feel, or even say most of the time, unless explaining it in the moment in response to a question or observation.

The first result did not have the word in the article; it appeared because it’s contained in the word whatever, used as ‘whatever we think we need’ (interesting; can general apathy resurface as the same?). Nonetheless, the post had its own significance:

The Crazy Things We Tell Our Children About Life

http://blog.beliefnet.com/conversationswithgod/2007/07/the-crazy-things-we-tell-our-c.html


"quick with messages of hate, calling all Westerners legitimate targets because of the actions of leaders…”

http://blog.beliefnet.com/conversationswithgod/2007/07/the-headlines-say-it-all-our-c.html

* "It is impossible to achieve inner peace when you are full of hate, suspicion and fear," the Buddhist spiritual leader told 5,500 people who packed Barton Hall for the first of his three public appearances during a two-day visit...

"Taking care of others is the best guarantee for your own happy future," the 72-year-old exiled Tibetan leader and Nobel laureate said.

http://www.humanitysteam.org/news/dalai-lama-oct2007


To answer the question, I hate what I don’t yet understand. For example, the ‘need’ to force-feed us sports at the end of every newscast, as if how could everyone not be interested, or the assumption that we are. Sports has its place, though it is also predominant and described or referred to in what our children are taught: competition, winners and losers, even in ‘religion’.

It is the truth of another culture to identify more as a member of that culture than as a unique individual and part of a collective humanity who may self-identify as such. Many are not permitted to make that choice, make it in secret, or embrace the culture.

Each is their own truth; I have learned to accept that, as it appears that all of humanity ‘knowing’ would not be an accurate description of humanity itself, with all its flaws and ‘natural’ tendencies.

If searching for the purposes in our lives consists of acquiring answers to a series of questions, it was inevitable that the one about ‘hate’ would come up eventually, and now being ‘all there is’...; in a different moment, I don’t like it.

Answers were found recently. Still processing, understanding intellectually and not emotionally. I get the words; not yet feeling or fully comprehending them, knowing others don't, the ones we don’t ‘understand’, that as part of our existence we share the planet with. It is contrast that characterizes our humanity, which allows us to distinguish joy from pain and injustice. I will accept this, and understand, not as much now as I will.

Born ‘without a hateful bone in my body’, as they say where I grew up, nor with a capacity for jealousy (who isn’t?). I didn’t understand when others ‘hated’ me for no reason I could see, or were ‘jealous’ for reasons I couldn’t understand. This occurred at different times with different people from childhood to now (like most all of us). When someone I was ‘deeply in love with’ chose someone else over me, I wasn’t jealous, I just didn’t understand. Later, I did. It wasn’t the father of my child, though it paved the way for that experience.

When we seek our essence, the thing that makes us ‘one’, there is no evil or hatred; the latter are learned or imposed by environment. The things people do to each other is not who they are; somehow they were taught to deny themselves in a form of ‘selfishness’, as who we really are has nothing to do with scarcity or competition.

In a lifetime, it appears to be impossible for some to shake off the layers of hatred and fear their environments have surrounded them with, that have told them that the opposite of who they are is what is. Many are not given the option to disagree at a very vulnerable time, as doing so would result in either a spiritual or physical death.

I don’t know how many are walking around with spirits beyond recovery, left ‘alive’ in body, in a hell on earth. I don’t fully understand who cannot or refuses to see this. I can’t explain how I still cannot hate one who deliberately hurts a child or others. ‘Intellectually’, I sometimes feel that I should. The equipment isn’t there; am I blessed, or cursed? I choose the former.

“Children are resilient.” is so often used as an excuse when the choice is to do nothing, consciously or otherwise. Broken spirits can make such statements. How many cannot unbreak the brokenness, mirrors of the systems in which they choose to live?

Someone, at some time in their most tender moments, stole the key, in a way that no one else could replace. I hate the emptiness left behind that gets turned on others. I hate not knowing if the moment has passed or is yet to come when a soul teeters between living and dying, and what might have prevented it. I hate the causes of what creates hate.