Seeing Universal Love

Universal love. I used to be sceptical about the possibility of adopting that attitude. Buddhism encourages it, Christianity preaches it, but can we do it? Do we need to have it? I am glad that I now can answer those questions as my heart slowly opens and radiates its energy.

I have talked about hatred in one of my previous posts and how it slowly consumed me. Well, it seems to me now that love will indeed save the day. I decided that the best way to eradicate hatred from within me is by replacing it with something else, something on the other end of the spectrum. Slowly, I realised that it faded away.

I used to be extremely judgemental towards the people I meet. When I thought that someone looked like a bimbo, or someone looked like an "Ah Beng" or "Ah Lian" , I will keep a ten-meters away from them because I hated them. When I do see them from that far, I would put on a plastic smile. Now I judge much less, and empathize and understand more. I realised that what people are now is the result of a thousand forces that molded them in the past, so I can't be pissed about something that isn't exactly their doing. Also, if I only got to know the people who were really appealing to me, my views of life might be constricted because the views of those are probably the same as mine. Now, I feel more free from the shackles of judgement. Now, everyone who crosses my path has the potential to be my friend. Now, the smiles I give people are truly smiles from the heart.

Righteous anger? Righteous hatred? Is there such a thing? Is it neccesary? What is considered as righteous anger and hatred? Because a person has no morals, or has acted immorally? My friend Dave once asked me do I think that there are any morals which are inherent in humans. I thought about it, and I said no. Were we born knowing not to steal? No, we learned it. Were we born knowing not to kill? No, we learned it. How did we learn it? Probably by two ways: One is that society does not accept these acts and we will be punished if we perform them. Another is by the saying " Thou shalt not do unto others what you will not have done unto you". In other words, empathy has instilled these morals within us. Are we borned with empathy? Perhaps. But according to Daniel Goleman in his Emotional Intelligence, the feeling that criminals of the most atrocious of crimes lack is empathy. He also came to some conclusion that this was caused by the neglection of their parents.

So do we hate these, in a sense, "underpriviledged" people? I feel that hating them is like hating the disabled or hating the starving children of underdeveloped countries. Because of that, I have made the choice not to righteously hate them, but instead, pity them and have compassion for them. Punishing them and treating them with contempt, I believe, is the easy way out. It is healing that takes effort and time, and effort and time is something that many people of today's society just do not have, especially for criminals. So powerful is the act of opening ones arms and offering those who have done severe "wrongs" a second chance.

What about the people who have done me wrong? When that happens, anger seems inevitable. It just oozes out like lava from a volcano, without anything that can be done. If we do not douse it, it will burn us and perhaps our surroundings. How do we douse it? For me, its forgivness and again, empathy, which I believe are two fundamental components of love, or tools to achieve love. When we see things from another point of view, the lava will seem to cool. Once it is cool, we can find from within ourselves to forgive the person. If we cannot, then we can find it in confrontation, peaceful confrontation. If that too does not work, perhaps we must realise that such people are as unavoidable as lightning and storm.

Crap, that was a bad answer. It seems that I have only touched the tip of universal love. There is still much to learn about it. But now that I see it, I seem to want it more because I know that it is achievable, and that it is a wondrously beautiful liberation. The clouds of life have cleared a little bit now. Hopefully I will see the blue sky in time. And if universal love is achievable, what about universal unconditional love? Well, that is a discovery of another day.