Hatred – A Driving Force ???

Are you holding a grudge? About?

It’s not good to hold grudge against anybody. Easy said than done.

However, it is killing to hold grudges. Mostly it is not against the others but against our own self. Yes, it is often like that! But not easily discernible. So it seems to be against the others – the wrong doers. However, the hate is actually directed to our own selves. And it is this enmity with one’s own self which becomes the veritable cause of low self esteem.

I realised this a lot later. Throughout my life hatred has been a driving force. Hatred against those who deprecated or disparaged me at various phases of life.

Hatred for them moved me forward in life to prove myself that I was no less. That one day I shall be on equal footing and tell them off. But life never takes a U-turn. Those I wished to kick in the butt never turned up in life again. Rather I made newer enemies whom I did not know how to deal with.

The grudge I held germinated from the resentment that I could not pay back my foes the same way they coerced me. I was naive. They were seemingly strong. I did not know how to put them in their place. Fear of imminent danger and the overwhelming despair of not knowing how to mend the situation were prime deterrents.

Even if my enemies were on a weaker front and their acts originated from their desperation it was not fathomable to me because the suddenness of attack left me dumbfounded and panic overpowered rationale.

What I intend to stress here is we never see the whole picture from a single lens and analyse it threadbare in our hurry to react to the adversary.

The questions that petrify are:

How could they do this to me?

Why did they do this to me?

How do I give them a fitting reply?

What will happen if I am not able to stand up to them ?

What effect this is going to have on my present and future life?

Is it my past karma?

How do I do away with the ill effects of misdeeds in the previous birth?

The questions we never ask are :

What are the actual causes behind the defamatory actions?

Does such an action originate from some limitations?

What are those limitations?

How do I show them their limitations?

What are the rectifying factors in the situation?

How the rectification can take place with least damage to my own self?

Feelings of betrayal, insult, shame and disgust prevent application of conventional wisdom. The inability to do so results in grudges against the perpetrators. But it is actually against our own selves for cowering down and not handling the imperative properly.

Grudges are accumulated baggage. I used to think hatred is strengthening me. No, it made me feel inferior inside. That is why the constant urge to push forward. Anger and hatred are debilitating. They give you an outward guise of being brave and courageous. But they actually breed vulnerabilities within.

When we talk of past karma and previous birth again the pointer is held towards us. Do we know what those karmas were? If not, there is no question of repairing them. So, let’s talk of now.

The antidote, as recommended by wise ones, is forgiveness. You are told to forgive the one whom you consider the sinner. But what we do not realize is that we have to forgive ourselves for failing to gear up to the what we were subjected to. Less we blame ourselves stronger we emerge.

However, it does not mean supplying lame excuses for not doing what was actionable and within our reach. It means if we were pushed to the wall and could not retaliate appropriately at the given time we should not hold it against ourselves. It is human to err but it is foolish to repeat the same mistakes. One has to know how to distinguish the thin line of demarcation of being a fool and being fooled. In either scenario you are not totally blameable. There may be several other factors contributing to it. Either we have been blind or blinded.

Again I guess we have to give ourselves time to stop smarting from the freshly inflicted wound and think straight. Once settled we have to re-enact the scenes and reflect with positive overtones setting aside the self castigations. If we were blind to certain stimuli, let’s figure out why it was so. If we were blinded then what persuaded us to be so.

Coming to definitive conclusions takes time. But after an impartial evaluation and enlightenment one has to equip oneself not to be put in the same trap again. I believe this is the process of forgiveness. It is more scientific and logical than a subliminal elevation to some unscalable level.

I once held grudges against everyone including my life itself. Today I seem to have a lofty sense of achievement that both the good and the bad have taught me so much that I am able to see through the foggy mirror, know my limits and strengths and write this post for all with hopefully some extractable thought overs.

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