Love your Enemy

Hate is a poisonous emotion eating at your soul like a cancer.

We all know that harboring negative emotions is bad for you, both spiritually and physically.

So we all try to combat negativity one way or another.

We may use prescription drugs or some not so prescribed ones or we can use a non-chemical, spiritual approach to reach that state of positive feeling.

We all have some measure of success in dealing with our shortcomings but when it comes to dealing with other people, things get a little bit more complicated. Like in this well-known instance:

“Love your Enemy!”

It sounds so right, so Christian so enlightened and because of that so overused to the point that it even sounds plausible.

That is until you try to apply it in real life and you find out that you can’t do it.

But you cannot admit it because you don’t want other people to think you are an unenlightened asshole.

Relax! You are not an asshole.

“Love your Enemy!” is just fancy bullshit and nobody actually does it, not because we haven’t tried it but because it is impossible to do.

Oh, the blasphemy!

Here is the truth; “Love your Enemy!” is a double bind just like “don’t think of a pink elephant”, “act naturally” or “love me unconditionally”

They all sound right until you look past the semantics and understand the real meaning of what is saying.

Let me translate for you:

“don’t think of a pink elephant” = don’t think what you are thinking

“act naturally” = force yourself not to force yourself

“love me unconditionally” =be unconditioned by my condition

And of course:

“Love your Enemy!” = love what you hate

You cannot satisfy a double bind because a double bind is a contradiction in terms.

Bottom line, you cannot have the cake and eat it too.

So how do we deal with the people we hate?

First, you have to understand that the opposite of love is not hate.

The opposite of love is indifference and if you don’t believe me, go ahead and try it.

There is nothing more efficient in killing a love affair than indifference.

So what is the opposite of hate, what would make hate dissipate?

The opposite of hate is compassion.

By looking at whom you hate with compassion you will rain in your hatred.

The problem is that very few people understand what compassion is and very few people practice compassion in their daily life.

Compassion is in the Western culture is defined as a “sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others”

So the tenant of Western civilization is “Feel compassion for the unfortunate ones and love for your enemies” while the Eastern point of view is quite opposite “Feel love for the unfortunate ones and compassion for your enemies”

I find it very hard to define what compassion is or what it feels like but I will give you an example.

Hitler, one of the most hated people ever. ]I cannot love him because I cannot love what he has done but I can look at him like this:

“Hitler is not a historical hero; he’s humanity’s greatest failure”

 “What was the hell, the pain, the hatred that has poisoned his soul so bad to turn him from a human being into a monster like that?”  

We dehumanize our enemies in order to let our hate rage.

The moment we think of our enemies as a distorted, misguided, misfortunate, tortured human beings the hatred changes into compassion.

I don’t know if I have convinced you to start practicing compassion in your life but if not, I just want to say one more thing.

Hate hurts more the person that hates than the person is hated.

Think about it.