Can You Choose to Love What You Hate?
In the presence of love hatred for your enemy is transformed.
Have you ever noticed how you instantly feel when someone says, “I hate (fill in the blank)?” Hatred can seem benign. For example, someone says, “I hate cilantro. It tastes like soap in my mouth.” Well, if you have ever tasted soap in your mouth, that is pretty straight forward—the taste is not pleasant. Or hatred cannot seem so innocuous, for example when a person says, “I hate Native Americans.” Now, that hatred feels different doesn’t it? But, you agree only stupid people let someone take their land, and destroy their culture, right? Wrong. I am Native American, and my people willingly saved the lives of those who came and forcibly took our land, and decimated our culture. Native American Elders and tribes knew the importance of our role in waking up the world to higher levels of consciousness and compassion. However, until I realized this truth in my heart, and chose to forgive, I used to hate the American flag. This might seem trivial, but when I looked at the hate in my heart for the American flag, and what my mind projected unto it; I realized what a crucial unacknowledged role my people play in the Great Awakening. As is often the case, when one honestly reviews history; greed had one intention, and God had another. God’s intention was to create a great country, the United States of America; that put God, the constitution, freedom and the family first.
Generally, hate is defined as an intense feeling or passionate aversion for someone or something. Emotionally, the desire to inflict harm or to hurt another (revenge) is often a feeling that is on the doorstep of hatred. This is important to acknowledge. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.” Can you simply not like “it _____?”
Liking and loving are not synonymous.
What is the real reason you hate (fill in the blank)? Are you courageous enough to look into your heart and see that? It was looking at the hate in my heart for the American flag, that I realized what a gift Native American’s are to the United States of America and to the world. This becomes even more significant, when you realize that my ancestors, the Abenaki people, are still not recognized by the American Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Nevertheless, hate is not rational, and it has a greater impact on the individual who hates than the hated.
Yet overcoming hatred is arduous because hatred reinforces itself and causes formidable enmity to come into being. Love is the only force one can use to combat hatred. Deciding to love what you hate, whether this is a person, situation, a part of yourself, or God can create profound changes in your feelings and your life: Love is not a feeling. There is no room for anger, rage, bitterness, resentment or revenge when you are busy loving. The practice of loving what you hate, can transform and shift your emotions and feelings from hatred to love.
Hatred can’t exist in a space occupied by love.
Admittedly, it is difficult to forgo judging someone, but you can choose to love them, and seek wisdom in situations that cause you suffering. In deciding to love what you hate, you are one less person propagating negativity on Earth. Simply put, loving what you hate aids you enjoying your life more completely. On a more complex level, loving what you hate, gives you freedom because you disengage yourself from the hatred that blocks you from living from your divine nature/soul.
Responding with love to people emanating hatred, transmutes their negative energy. You empower yourself by shielding yourself from their negativity. Rather than lowering yourself to the level of hatred, you give the other’s a chance to rise above their feelings of hatred and join you in the field of love. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”