***HATE TO LOVE

I read an article about how one college’s students hates another college and its rival student body. This arises out of a sports rivalry spanning over one hundred years. My initial reaction was wondering how in the world we are going to have peace on this planet when even simple friendly sport competitions provokes hatred in the Bible belt. This is not merely a frivolous academic animosity; it breaks into violence from time to time. I observe with great compassion that there is something seriously ignorant and misguided if is this is what the institutions of higher learning are creating. It is rather obvious to anyone that looks that both sides to this emotional violence acts and behaves like mirror images of each other. When one side loses, the other side is “obnoxious or poor losers.”

If one were to add family, ethnic and religious resentment to this emotional soup, it is no wonder that there is genocide occurring on this planet as I write this and you read it. I wonder if I am contributing to this suffering. If I believe the ancient wisdoms and teachings, if I can perceive it, I am creating it.
When we say “I” followed by an emotion, we usually follow it with an object of that emotion. If we say “I love”, we usually direct that towards another person or idea, such as “I love you” or “I love America”. Similarly, when we say “I hate”, we direct that emotion towards someone or something, such as “I hate you” or “I hate intolerance.”

The truth is there is no object for our emotion outside of us, because ancient wisdom states that all perception is projection. We perceive that there is something “out there” to project our emotions at, when it is only us projecting that emotion at us. In other words, when we say “I love you”, we mean “I love me.” When we say, “I hate you”, we mean, “I hate me.” There is no “you”, there is only “me.” When we say, “I miss you,” we mean that “ I am missing me.” When we say, “I want/need you,” we mean “I want/need me.”

We have to understand that what we project out into the world will manifest. When we get into the whole “I want…” manifestation illusion what we are projecting out into the world is our lack. When we buy into the “Secret of…” nonsense we are only creating more of what we are attempting to fill, i.e. unhappiness. Grace only comes to those with open and happy hearts, not to those who are trying to keep up with the Jones. When we say, “I will not be happy until I have [fill in the blank]”, we project unhappiness and lack into the world. When we say “I don’t like [fill in the blank]”, we project rejection and denial into the world.

The ultimate truth is there is no “you.” When we say, “I love you,” we mean “I am love.” When we say, “I hate you,” we mean “I am hate.” This, of course, is all an illusion that we create to make us realize that we are everything, there is nothing that is not us. The Muslims have a powerful prayer, “La ilaha ilallah,” which means, “There is nothing that is not God.”

If we want peace, we have to apply it to our lives. It can’t start somewhere else; it has to start in our hearts. Whenever we think unkind or violent thoughts about someone or some situation, someone dies in a far away land on the other side of the planet. This is known in quantum physics and metaphysics as the “butterfly effect.” Thus, when a butterfly beats its wings in Japan, a hurricane is born in the Atlantic. Everything is connected, and to deny this is to live in ignorance. So when we think that someone is an “asshole,” this will have a very real consequence somewhere in our world and ultimately will come back to us, because we are really labeling ourselves with this epithet.
It would be so amazing if we stopped competing with each other and started cooperating instead. Just think, peace might actually break out all around the planet.