Emotions for Liberation

The ideas that our suffering is always our own fault seems like a half-truth, like all truths. Many innocent people are caught up in genocide, friendly fire, and a million other circumstances outside of their making or control. What could be sadder than a starving mother who cannot feed her crying, dying child! Actually many things are just as sad and happening every moment of every day. We need to avoid overly simplistic, transcendent ideas that often don't apply. Yes, a great deal of our suffering is self-inflicted and a great deal of it is not.

 Blaming ourselves is no better than blaming others. Blame and moralistic judgments of others, labeling them as bad or evil, only leads to the creation of enemies and the increased possibility of violence on our part. When interviewed some individuals who had family members murdered in the Rwanda genocide were filled with hate and a desire for revenge, others were fearful about how they were now going to survive on their own, while others only desired reconciliation and forgiveness. Each person created their own feelings and reality from the same situation. This does not in any way suggest that genocide is acceptable behaviour. There are so many tragic things happening in the world, but responding with blame and hatred  will only create more suffering, while responding with forgiveness and a desire to work cooperatively with those who acted in such ways  in order to create understanding and to find win/win solutions to the problems at hand will more likely lead to peace and harmony. Getting stuck in our thoughts about who is to blame, who is right and who is wrong just interferes with our ability to find solutions to our conflicts that work for all involved.

"Darkness can not drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate can not drive out hate, only love can do that."

                                                                                                                                             ML King, Jr.

Agreed it is not easy to love those who have acted in ways that have been harmful to us, but it is possible. The question is how do we get there?
                                                

 Yes it is not easy but if we who who I am then it will become easy. For more information you can go www.hsrcrf.org and look at the three books posted on them.

 Sorry it should be www.hscrf.org