Loving your enemies

reply to post by silent thunder


I admit it is a beautiful sentiment however...
it's been almost six years since my fifteen year old son was murdered...

everyday there are two things I think about... what would my son look like if he were alive today? Would I know him if I saw him walking down the street..
And what would I do to the man who killed him? To be sure it wouldn't be done out of love... but with with every once of six years of pure malice I have nurtured for this person...

there are academic enemies then There are real enemies I have no love for the latter


[edit on 7-12-2009 by DaddyBare]

Originally posted by DaddyBare
reply to post by silent thunder

 

I admit it is a beautiful sentiment however...
it's been almost six years since my fifteen year old son was murdered...

everyday there are to thinks I think about... what would my son look like if he were alive today? Would I know him if I saw him walking down the street..
And what would I do to the man who killed him? To be sure it wouldn't be done out of love... but with with every once of six years of pure malice I have nurtured for this person...

there are academic enemies then There are real enemies I have no love for the latter

That's terrible, I hope someday you can find the power to let go of your anger, because it will only hurt you more, as understandable as it is!
There's no hurry though, you might need to be angry the rest of your life.

*hugs*

If one is on a path of peace, which IMOP is the best path to take, then he never meets anyone. Only if he stays on his path. If someone tries to do violence to you and you to him, then you left your path and are now traveling his path. Only by staying on your path will you make it to it's destination. So if you believe that violence is always wrong and peace is the only way, then off your path you will not go.

As this is not an ideal world, where we can all remain on our path and live our life our way, you can easily be thrown off your path by others who disagree with your path. For example Jesus was crucified. If you take an absolute pacifist approach, such as Jesus did, then your journey will come to a premature end at the hand of another. This is basically letting the bad guy win all the time. If suppose you believed in reincarnation and the possibility of continuing your path from where you left off, then because you left the bad-guys in control of the world the last time around, they are still the controllers of the world and more powerful, they will once again throw you off your path.

This is why I must reject Jesus's absolute pacifism in favour of a more sound moral philosophy like the one proposed by Krishna in the Bhagvad Gita. In Krishna's philosophy it is OK to be violent in order to uphold justice, because if you do not fight against injustice, you will allow injustice to prevail and spoil it for the future generations. In the Gita, the situation is morally very complex, Krishna is instructing Arjuna to fight and destroy an unjust that includes many of his own loved ones, like teachers, uncles, cousins etc. But this does not mean that Arjuna ceases loving them, he still very much loves them and regrets having to kill them, but it is because he truly loves them that he has to kill them. They are sinners, and to stop them from sinning further and spoiling it for the world, it becomes necessary to kill them.

This idea of killing your own loved ones to maintain justice will sound alien to a Christian, but it is common in Eastern philosophy. I saw a film called "Mother India" in which a mother had to kill her own son, whom she loved very dearly, but had spoiled him so much he had become evil and was threatening the life of innocent people. So she performed the ultimate sacrifice and killed him to prevent him from causing further harm to himself and to others. This kind of moral philosophy actually sounds reasonable, we cannot hold double standards for our loved ones and strangers. If a love ones commits a crime they are subject to the same laws of justice as a stranger is.

From the way I see it, there is a major difference between going as far as killing someone, and a parent lovingly, punishing their child. You do not kill your child because you love it. I mean maybe it's just me, but how on earth could that be wrong? That is love.

Who's job is it to teach our children these things. It is us parents. Right from wrong. We all know what is right and what is wrong, in our hearts. Our own hearts condemn us for what is wrong.

The parent-children analogy was simply to suggest that sometimes love requires punishment. There can be instances where you may have to kill your children, such as the example I gave of Mother India above. Another example could be you find out your son is a terrorist and is plotting to blow up people, do you simply let him do it, or do you destroy your son to save the lives of innocent people?

The kind of morality prescribed in the bible is simply not applicable to the real world.

[edit on 7-12-2009 by Indigo_Child]

Punishment is needed to stop someone keeps hurting us. Forgiveness is needed since making mistakes is just part of human's life.
Norse proverb saying, no man is so good as to be free of evil, nor so bad as to be worth nothing.

The way i look at all this, is the world deserves all its sh1t. If people are evil and want to do all this stuff let them, society is the one who pays, for wanting people like that over innocent people.

Thats my view on the people that destroyed my life. They thought it was great fun doing what they did to me, but society wanting them, shows society wants the trash,a nd so be it.

Let the world have as much trash as it can have, is my motto in this.

Originally posted by andy1033

Yep, i agree with you. And the worse is we are living among the trash. It will make us smell like trash itself (to 'them' at least). Each human being is unique, with their own various abilities and disabilities. However, Society always imposes on us a COLLECTIVE way of behaving, everyone has to be the same (look like, at least) as everyone else. And that, in my view, it will create a serious illness to every unique individual. Here I'd like to quote Sir Winston Churchill "if you are going through hell, keep going". We will always belong to a society. IMHO, and the worse, society is like a prison for the liberty of every unique individual creature. Take it for granted, that's the trash.

I know that at school, I pity some of the kids that harass me to hide their insecurities. I feel as though I understand them. What is the difference between loving your enemy and pitying them?