On fear
[vc_row row_height_percent="0" overlay_alpha="50" gutter_size="3" shift_y="0" css=".vc_custom_1495612621711{padding-top: 40pt !important;padding-bottom: 40pt !important;}"][vc_column column_width_percent="75" overlay_alpha="50" gutter_size="3" medium_width="0" shift_x="0" shift_y="0" z_index="0"][vc_column_text]We each possess fears that hold us back, hide us from the world, and alienate us from the essence of our true selves. And more often than not, we act out due to blinding fear rather than benevolent emotions that allow us the courage to show our true desires, whatever they may be. If fear were a person, he or she would be very satisfied for perniciously and successfully conquering and dominating people’s hearts in today’s world.
Each one of us has her or his own story of fear. Some fear stems from material success: will I get a job, will I make it, will I be able to have a home and build a family? Other fears stem from the need for safety and security: will I be safe enough, or will I be attacked, raped, or killed? Other forms of dread come from the fear of loss: will I lose what I have, or will I lose my loved ones? But, in my opinion, all fears come from our deepest desire to be loved and accepted at the core for who we are. In care and acceptance we are safe and we can be comfortable with who we are without ever worrying. And yet we unconsciously build the walls of fear to surround us lest we expose the vulnerability of who we are and our simplest need: love.
I once imagined fear as a big, giant scary dark structure that horrified everyone outside of it by how it looked. It was the only way I could think of it—as having an entrance to explore its meaning from the inside. I imagined entering this dark scary compound with much trepidation. It was like being in an underground tunnel with multiple rats coming at you, but you’re cornered by dark walls and cannot see what lies ahead. But I kept on going until I reached a point where there was a small room with warm light inside. When I peeked in, I realized that inside that structure of fear was actually a very base desire to be accepted. Perhaps we each build that horrific edifice around us as a way to protect ourselves from people’s judgment and all that comes with it. From the outside, it looks very scary to all who only see the exterior. But from the inside it is both vulnerable and isolating, as we attempt to protect ourselves from the other.
It’s as if we feel more comfortable with building fear around us instead of taking a leap of faith to exhibit our true desire of love and acceptance. What if our own individual fear creates fear in others and the consequential fears of others lead to more horror inside of our own hearts. What if we are each responsible for that creation of fear and its maintenance in our lives? What if the same applies to different cultures and nations as we deal with each other in today’s complex world?
The way I see it there is only one way to dismantle this fear. It takes trust and an act of affection from all parties. Imagine for a moment that you have dismantled the walls of fear that you have built around you. It is a very difficult act indeed for it requires one to put down the shield of protection and in that instinct there is utter vulnerability. Will they love me? Will they accept me for simply being who I am?
This is a story of collective responsibility—not only individual. For as the individual puts down their armor of fear, outsiders must also see beyond that fear and see the individual for who they really are rather than the projection that one has put on them. In other words, to dismantle the power of fear in our lives takes all parties to show faith in the other and requires all involved to show actual love in that crucial moment of vulnerability.
I share this because I feel we are living in times of fear. We started 2015 with a horrible attack in Paris, and reports of more ISIS executions, more refugees, and more unemployment. In a way, there is more violence everywhere we turn. Fear is spreading its own wings these days without hesitation. Our news is covered with stories of fear: Christians fearing Muslims, Muslims fearing Christians and Jews, Jews fearing Muslims, Hindus fearing Muslims, Muslims fearing Hindus, atheists fearing all religions, Muslims fearing other Muslims, and this xenophobia is relentless. It is easier to remain anxious and to spend hours trying to understand it. It is much harder to ask people to reflect on and deconstruct their angst and show love, compassion, and acceptance towards others’ vulnerabilities.
It is like a big tsunami that is heading our way and taking everything—every value, every love, every sense of unity in humanity—with it. And yet the only way to rid ourselves of that fear is to surmount the wave of anger, resentment, and judgment. We should see the “other”—whoever that “other” may be: a friend, a lover, a colleague, a different religion, or a different country—for the essence of their hope to be loved and accepted. As with all emotions, it starts with the reciprocal act of hearing and telling stories. So the question is: can you take that leap of faith, dismantle your armors, and show that desire to people close to you? Can you also show love for someone who is vulnerable and see the essence of his or her soul and desire? Can you do that in your life? Can you do that beyond your life and extend it to the larger story of today’s reality? I believe we can. If I could, so can everyone—whoever you may be—as it takes more than just the individual to conquer fear.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
The world we live in is a product of our imagination, so we might as well reclaim our imagination.
[vc_row row_height_percent="0" overlay_alpha="50" gutter_size="3" shift_y="0" css=".vc_custom_1495612614981{padding-top: 40pt !important;padding-bottom: 40pt !important;}"][vc_column column_width_percent="75" overlay_alpha="50" gutter_size="3" medium_width="0" shift_x="0" shift_y="0" z_index="0"][vc_column_text]The world we live in is a product of our imagination, so we might as well reclaim our imagination.
On December 21st, the day the Mayans predicted the world would change, I got together with friends recounting our learnings from 2012. I had embarked upon last year with Martha Beck’s advice of resting until one needs to play and playing until one needs to rest. It took me a while to come to an understanding of that way of life. At the beginning I thought the resting meant sleeping and the playing meant playing pingpong. But eventually I came to the realization that what she meant by resting and playing needs to be felt in everything one does. In other words, if whatever you do does not feel restful or playful and thus not lifting your spirit than it is probably not the right thing to do. I had been working so hard all my adult life that it took me a long time to find my new equilibrium, my balance, and my peace.
It is in that peaceful silent space where I got my learnings from last year. In that space I learned that only if one feels love to themselves can one feel and see the love in others. I had always shied away from love for myself thinking of it as selfish. It took me reading Warming the Stone Child by Clarissa Pinkola Estes to understand that loving and mothering thyself has nothing to do with selfishness and everything to do with maturity of spirit and an understanding that the love we are seeking is not outside of us but lies within us. As a matter of fact, everything we are seeking lies inside of us. If we love the Mother and respect her, than we need to love ourselves and give the proper respect to how we treat ourselves. She can only exist inside each one of us. And if we are waiting to see Her outside of us than it is going to be an endless process of waiting. Imagine how different you will treat yourself if you actually will give the same treatment as you would to the Divine Mother; the Mother in each one of them; a mother that is not only kind, loving and generous but also strong, determined and clear.
To love oneself means to also accept all of the self: the shadow and the light and and good and the bad. Up until recently, I had separated all of these meanings away from me thinking of their existence as only outside of me. But in truth, in love one can see the shadow that exists within oneself, and rather than reject it or hide it, we need to see it, acknowledge it, and accept it as part of the self. For me this was an ordeal and a painful process to accept the part of me that I was embarrassed of and that I hid in the caves of my caves. But as long as I was hiding it, I could never address it, and eventually I came to the conclusion that only when I acknowledge it with love can I actual love myself fully and thus calm and balance that shadow within me. Wilma Mankiller once said when asked about a necklace of two wolves she was wearing where was black and one was white, “they are both part of me. Which one I choose to feed more is my choice”. I had quoted her for so many years but only when I came to realize that darkness and light are both inside me andonly when I love that full part of me and do not deny either can I address my light and my darkness with consciousness and will.
I can never explain the relief that comes with this process. I felt like I was particles of sand dispersed all over the place, and only when I loved the fullness in the light and in the shadow could the particles come back together and form the full me and only when I could do that could I make the conscious choice that Wilma Mankiller was talking about. Otherwise my suppressed side always forced itself outside of me despite of me.
Then, and only then, could I deal with all the things I have been struggling with: my doubt, my pain, my hurt, all of it in a way where I acknowledge the feelings for what they are and make the choices to listen to them or to move away from them. The choice was mine. And then, and only then could I take full responsibility for the love I need to give myself not as being selfish at all but rather as being mature and responsible towards oneself. I realize that only then I could show true love to others. Love that understands my boundaries, my good and my bad, much better. Love that understands that unless I give myself what I need, I could never receive it from others outside of me.
Nothing in this journey is magical outside the realm of our imaginations. Each one of us, all of us, are part of this experience. The divine lies in each one of us. In our love, in our innocence, in our joy, and definitely in our freedom. The secret to all of that is to get the “I” out of the dynamics. The trap is when we think that only “I” am special. Only “I” feel this or that feeling. The truth as I see it, is only when we get the ego out of the way can we actually feel the divine. For we are all part of the oneness of this world and only in oneness can we feel the divine. And only in oneness do we all exist.
A farmer once told me “I don’t understand why everyone is so obsessed with self-sustainability. Nothing on earth is self-sustainable. Everything on earth is dependent on each other, so why we humans think we can be self-sustainable. It just doesn’t make sense.” What he was sharing is true to everything we do. Our actions are interdependent and codependent on each other, our survivors, our food and our energy and definitely our feelings even though it is far less obvious.
So with that spirit, my friends and I started imagining the world…. a world where every time a man rapes a woman, he feels that violation onto himself….a world where every time a person carries arms to kill, he feels that death inside himself and drops the arms as quickly as he picks it up. We imagines a world where every bite we take out of an apple or any food we think of how the earth was treated, about the farmers that picked it, the person who packed it and sold it and about the apple itself. We imagine a world were we are all free to fulfill our full potentials. We imagined a world were we can lead out of love and not out of fear. We kept on imagining and went wild with our imagination until we came to only our breath. And that is when we realized we are but breath in this massive, beautiful amazing world.
The world we live in is a product of our imagination. So we might as well, with the beginning of a new era and a new year, reclaim our imagination and make magic happen. But remember, the journey always starts with the self. It may be the hardest journey to make but the one that holds the secret to utter joy and love. Happy new year everyone.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
August Poem
[vc_row row_height_percent="0" overlay_alpha="50" gutter_size="3" shift_y="0" css=".vc_custom_1495612592859{padding-top: 40pt !important;padding-bottom: 40pt !important;}"][vc_column column_width_percent="75" overlay_alpha="50" gutter_size="3" medium_width="0" shift_x="0" shift_y="0" z_index="0"][vc_column_text]Of the same mother
Fed from the same roots
Yet a tulip does not question its right to come out in its full beauty, but I do.
Of the same mother and from the same roots,
Yet a water spring never questions its right to come out in this spot or that spot, but I often do.
So what if I allow myself the same clarity a tree has when it blossoms in spring
What if I allow myself the same peace a water fall has in its strength
What if I spread my wings in its fullness without hesitation or fear.
How will the air feel?
Where will my heart take me to?
What if I know that I am the rose and the thorn in it as well.
What if I am OK with the best part of me and the worst part of me.
What if I see fully me and still love what I see.
What if I see fully you and truly love the full you.
What if I let the energy of my volcano erupt fully in its roar
What if I let the sweetness of my spring to nourish all
What if I let my peacock feather to open in its beauty and seductiveness
What if I am OK with the bee inside me to stink when attacked.
What if I know when my rose is cut off, it will come back again and again.
Of the same mother
Fed from the same roots
Yet I spent too many years depriving myself of what my mother has always given me: the clarity of the tulip,
strength of the water fall,
sweetness of a rose smell,
defensiveness of the bee sting,
beauty of a peacock,
and the softness of a water spring.
What if in this spring I am clear
with an open, full, strong, vulnerable, beautiful heart.
What would life be.
So let it be.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
What Do You Do With Those Who Betray You? Love Them!
[vc_row row_height_percent="0" overlay_alpha="50" gutter_size="3" shift_y="0" css=".vc_custom_1495612554779{padding-top: 40pt !important;padding-bottom: 40pt !important;}"][vc_column column_width_percent="75" overlay_alpha="50" gutter_size="3" medium_width="0" shift_x="0" shift_y="0" z_index="0"][vc_column_text]I remember myself as a youngster playfully repeating “Et tu, Brute?” to my friends after reading Julius Caesar. Regardless of Shakespeare’s brilliant description of betrayal, I still had no idea of the deep pain betrayal causes when I first read about it. When I experienced the feeling myself later on in life, I realized it is like a dagger that digs deep down into alleys of the heart no one knows about except those we willingly let in. Betrayal can only happen when there is love and thus trust. For in the act of love, we let people into the most intimate aspect of our hearts, letting down our walls and protections. That’s when we risk hurt and betrayal but that’s also the place of utter love.
Whenever I felt betrayed by people I love, for it can only be triggered by those we love, I was left with a very confused feeling. The shift from a place of love to a place of hurt and anger triggered by betrayal is a radical shift over a short period of time. It feels like an earthquake has shaken the foundation of your love and it leaves one desperately trying to grab on to any solid land to get a grip of what has just happened. I usually grab the land of sorrow first, then anger, then disappointment. Eventually, I realize that all of these feelings eat my heart from within and I come to the realization that the only way out is through love. But love? Really? You may wonder how one can transform the pain of betrayal into love. I too did not believe it could happen at first but now I do.
Cambridge Dictionary defines betrayal as the “act of not being loyal when other people believe you are loyal.” In “The Ballad of Reading Gaol,” Oscar Wilde describes betrayal by saying “each man kills the thing he loves. By each let this be heard. Some do it with a bitter look. Some with a flattering word. The coward does it with a kiss. The brave man with a sword.” I see it simply as the lack of courage at being truthful to oneself or to others. Betrayal for me is not in the act of abandonment but in the lack of ability to communicate the truth, one’s truth, with integrity and grace to those we love. Only when we tell the truth can there be true healing. And the truth, no matter what it is, resonates in people’s hearts even if it sheds light on the worse aspects of who we are. For, the worse information, when told in the simple and honest truth, can be taken with the grace and love truth carries.
There was a few times in which I felt betrayed in my life. My first experience came from my mother the day she tried to commit suicide when I was a child, and then again when she pushed me into an arranged marriage later on in my life. Other betrayals came from friends and romances, people I deeply loved and trusted. As I am writing this, I am thinking to myself, “Well, it’s not so bad. I am almost 44 years old and I only felt betrayal 5 times in my life. Once for each decade. Not so bad really J.” I can laugh about it now but I can assure you each was a very painful experience that left me confused at the whole world, not knowing how to make sense of it all. I held on to the anger I felt towards my mother for many years for example. How could the woman I loved the most in my life, betray me so deeply, I often asked myself? But that question kept on repeating itself every time I felt betrayed. How could this person that I loved so much betray my trust and my love?
I was told once that a horse’s biggest act of love is when it lets humans caress it in between its eyes. I am sure there were times in which there were violations of this most intimate moment for the horse. We violate such spaces when we are afraid, insecure, feel powerless, or even jealous. I have a hard time believing people we love do things out of meanness. Hurt can only come out of hurt. Maybe I am wrong, maybe not, and maybe there are exceptions to this theory. Whatever it is, I am sure there were horses whose eyes were injured or even blinded in that moment of violation which can be seen as betrayal. If I was a horse I could only process what happened to me if I understood the feeling that triggered the person I loved so much to violate my space in such a painful way. Suddenly, I wondered if a horse would so easily let people come into that space. And that’s when I started wondering if I have ever betrayed myself?
Things started shifting from seeing any point of betrayal from inside out (its all about the others who betrayed) to seeing it from within the self. When have I betrayed myself? I started asking. What were those moments? What triggered me to betray myself? Ouch! For the journey to the self is always the hardest one. Here, I am embarking on yet another inner journey to see what I needed to discover, heal, love and accept about myself. Just as I was hurt, angry, and disappointed at the loved ones who once betrayed me, I became angry and disappointed with myself for all the times I let go of my instinct and did not trust it; for all the times I did not stand up for my rights or own my voice and power; for all the times I justified sacrificing myself and my well-being in the name of love; and for all the times I tried to protect my vulnerabilities by creating illusions and projections of the people I loved, rather than addressing and seeing my true needs and what I was seeking thereby seeing the true being and who they were.
I continued to dig and dig and dig deeper until I found the little girl in me that was acting out of her pain, vulnerability and fear rather than from the strength of the adult woman that I had become. The betrayal of me came from my own injuries. Some go back to my childhood and are still working themselves out in my adult life. Suddenly, the anger and the disappointment I felt towards myself transformed into deep love and affection right down to the vulnerable part of me that was acting out of pain, for I understood that pain and its source. As women we are trained and so used to being hard on ourselves and almost fearing self-love that it can be seen as selfish, not motherly, or as not giving enough. Fluctuating the self and punishing it for all the wrong we have done is so much easier than loving it. But then again, there cannot be healing, true healing, without love. And I had to consciously go into love to heal myself from the time I had betrayed myself.
In order to heal and love, one has to forgive. I once had a dream where I heard someone telling me, “We must forgive even when not asked for forgiveness.” I objected to that line in the dream. “This is too much,” I said. “Is it too much to ask to forgive those who have not asked for forgiveness?” But, the dream kept on repeating, “We must forgive even when not asked for forgiveness.” Finally, I calmed down regarding the saying, rested in it, accepted it and understood why we need to do it. It’s the only way we can heal ourselves and let the self be free of all resentments, anger, pain, and hurt. People hurt each other out of their own pain just as we hurt ourselves out of our own pain. So only when we release ourselves from that pain, see it, love it and forgive it, can we truly love the essence of the self in its most beautiful aspect and also in the aspect we are most embarrassed of, our own shadows, for that is the true meaning of love. That’s when I could love, truly love, those who have betrayed me and love them from their very point of betrayal. If they betrayed me out of their pain just as I betrayed myself out of my pain then I can understand, sympathize and I can love without needs or expectations but for what it is and what that person is, without any illusions or projections.
So yes, it is possible to forgive even when not asked for forgiveness and even when people betray their own courage at telling the truth. Though I still believe that only when we tell the truth can there be true healing, I also understand that it takes much courage to tell that truth and sometimes it will entail revealing the most insecure, frightened aspects of ourselves. I can only go through this process for myself. I cannot expect it at all from others. To each his or her own. For me, it is a journey of love. For I believe love is bigger than all. And love is the only true healer. That includes deep, utter, and true love for the self so we may give it the respect it deserves and not betray it again. At least hopefully so… Is it possible to love those who betrayed us? Absolutely YES! I LOVE each and every single one of them, most importantly my mother and also the friends and the loved ones who later came in my life. parental guidance And in that I found my healing. I am sure a horse would have done the same.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Celebrating the Ordinary
[vc_row row_height_percent="0" overlay_alpha="50" gutter_size="3" shift_y="0" css=".vc_custom_1495612523558{padding-top: 40pt !important;padding-bottom: 40pt !important;}"][vc_column column_width_percent="75" overlay_alpha="50" gutter_size="3" medium_width="0" shift_x="0" shift_y="0" z_index="0"][vc_column_text]Rumi once said that “silence is the language of God, all else is poor translation.” As a lover of God, I always seek God in the wonders of the world, in serving other people, and in the exploration of all kinds of spiritual practices. I felt like these were attempts to catch a glimpse of God but in the process I could not hold onto that glimpse as I returned to my daily life. That glimpse was always somewhere else outside of me. Sometimes I saw it in the beauty of humanity amidst the worst of human atrocities. Sometimes it was in an act of kindness by someone we may know or may not know. The glimpse has always been like a jar that poured water of hope and belief into my heart. It was that belief that kept me going even as I worked in wars for many years. Other times that glimpse was in spiritual retreats I explored as I tried to make sense of all the wars in the world and the stories I was being exposed to. Other times I found it in my daily meditation and prayers. All were beautiful experiences but I also wanted to hold on to the sensation during my ordinary routines, be it attending a meeting, giving a speech, or traveling.
But recently I decided to explore that silence in the ordinary of every moment in my life. Instead of only separately carving some space for my meditation and prayers each day, I decided to integrate my seeking of the presence of God in every inhalation and every exhalation I take. So instead of checking my phone and my emails as I sat in the taxi or the subway, I just focused on my breathing—and with that, I focused on God. And so the practice spread throughout my day: in the shower, while walking from one place to another, and with every meal. And suddenly I noticed a beauty—a new beauty—I had not experienced before and that is the beauty of the ordinary.
Ecstatic feelings came out of the simplest experiences: the sensation of my feet touching the ground as I walked, the softness of every breeze touching my face, and even the drinking of a glass of water. And when everything was so beautiful, my seeking of the divine turned into the exploration of the ordinary of everyday life with no more separation between that, my prayers, and my daily activities. All became one.
And with that came a new curiosity. A curiosity to see everything in all its truthfulness for I figured that is where beauty lies. For example, I am someone who always put nail polish on my toenails because one of my nails broke a long time ago and never grew back normally. Therefore I always covered it up with all kinds of colors. But when the ordinary became so beautiful, I took off all my nail polish and was enjoying my broken toenail in its fragility, beauty, and even ugliness. I shaved my head and took all my makeup off. I know this is a bit extreme, but it is an extreme I can afford and am willing to do. Soon I started noticing how makeup felt like a mask that I was putting on every day: sometimes for good reasons, sometimes to cover up sad stories, and sometimes to pretend everything is perfect. It is not that I stopped putting makeup on, but at least I laugh at my silly attempts at masking. And “why mask?” I started wondering to myself. It is in our vulnerability that we connect to each other as people. It is in our joy and our sorrows, in our light and our shadows that we connect, learn, and grow. Suddenly those in my life who covered their shadows, as I covered the dark circles under my eyes with concealer, stopped being of interest to me. How can I connect with those who hide their shadow so deeply? It feels as unreal as the perfect looking woman who is full of plastic surgeries. She is beautiful! But everyone knows it is not real, natural beauty. And it is hard to connect with the unreal. For God is only in the real!
So here I am starting my 2014 with the most obvious knowledge that I have not paid attention to all my life: the beauty is in the ordinary. It is in the ordinary of our behavior of love, generosity, and kindness. The beauty is even in our behavior that triggers shame, embarrassment, and anger. For these moments help us grow. And in the cracks of the self, new light eventually comes. And with this, I started experiencing God with every breath: not separate from my daily life but part of every movement and every step I make. And for that, I am grateful!
May 2014 helps us all see the beauty of the ordinary.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Why there is more desire to live the life of a celebrity instead of the life of Gandhi?
[vc_row row_height_percent="0" overlay_alpha="50" gutter_size="3" shift_y="0" css=".vc_custom_1495612494763{padding-top: 40pt !important;padding-bottom: 40pt !important;}"][vc_column column_width_percent="75" overlay_alpha="50" gutter_size="3" medium_width="0" shift_x="0" shift_y="0" z_index="0"][vc_column_text]Everything around us is inundated with news about celebrities: their lifestyles, what they wear, what they did, their homes and boats, their love affairs, and everything in between. You can’t actually escape such information even if you are not interested in the subject. What I don’t understand is idealizing the life of a person we know nothing about beyond their acting skills. We do not know the individual behind the celebrity—their hopes, dreams, desires, accomplishments, feelings of inner peace, and who they are as individuals in their hearts. We see the masks and we are obsessed by it. We desire it thinking it is the real thing—perhaps thinking it is real happiness and peace. In the meantime, we look at people who have walked the journey for real peace of heart and mind, such as Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, in an admiring way but we leave them alone on a pedestal to admire and maybe criticize but not to aspire towards.
Do you see the absurdity of our obsession with the masks rather than what is behind the masks? Do you see how convoluted our understanding of happiness and contentment is? We think we desire only the mask: the lifestyle, the glamour, the clothes, the cars, the houses, the travels, and the beauty. And we want the mask for we think that is the journey that will get us the joy we all seek in our lives. And so we leave the journey that is behind the mask alone, and with it we leave Gandhi and Mandela alone too. We respect them but rarely do I meet people who want to walk their journey. “Why?” I wonder.
All I know is that the journey to truth and inner happiness is a hard one for you cannot buy it no matter how much money you have. You can only work on getting it from within and that entails confronting yourself, your demons, and your heart’s truth. In that journey, no material possessions matter. You can have it all, as many celebrities do indeed have it all, and still do not have joy and happiness.
How ironic, the thing that is accessible for all, for rich and poor alike, is not popular and the people who have walked that journey are just studied in history from afar. You see that inner peace and happiness does not require buying anything. That desire to help people, and to speak truth to power, requires a lot of courage and even sacrifice at times. But it allows the person to sleep soundly at night and when the moment of death comes, there is no resistance to it. To get real joy is to surrender and release our egos, as well as desires to being acknowledged or loved. Oh, it is so so much harder to walk that journey than it is to make money and buy that fancy car. And it is so much more joyous to feel that peace–and to dance with joy in your own skin–than it is to buy that gorgeous dress that you can’t afford. The first gives you a prolonged taste of that joy and the latter gives it to you momentarily, maybe daily and maybe only hourly.
Seriously, we’ve all experienced the excitement of buying a beautiful new dress or a new car. But if you are just slightly like me, that joy lasts no more than a few days for a dress and maybe a month for the car. That joy stops when what you already possess becomes the norm. And so you want to buy a new dress and another new thing over and over again to give you that taste of that joy rather than reverse the journey and do the hard work to achieve inner peace, where the self lies blissfully in silence.
We know nothing of celebrities and who they are as individuals. What we know is the mask they wear, as we all have our masks, and the obsession with how beautiful their masks are. Rather than viewing role models as those who have historically excelled in living his or her truth, our society asks us to idolize the mask of a celebrity. Are you with me? I think this is weird.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
On Anger, Justice, and Love
[vc_row row_height_percent="0" overlay_alpha="50" gutter_size="3" shift_y="0" css=".vc_custom_1495612416312{padding-top: 40pt !important;padding-bottom: 40pt !important;}"][vc_column column_width_percent="75" overlay_alpha="50" gutter_size="3" medium_width="0" shift_x="0" shift_y="0" z_index="0"][vc_column_text]A man in the audience of a recent speech I gave asked me for advice to help him deal with his anger at all the injustice he sees in his community and in the world. I was so touched by this man’s courage to talk about his anger publicly, an emotion that is seen so negatively in society that we would rather suppress any discussion of it than address it in public.
There are many definitions of anger. One of them, from Webster’s English Dictionary, defines anger as: “excited by an injury offered to a relation, friend or party to which one is attached; and some degrees of it may be excited by cruelty, injustice or oppression offered to those with whom one has no immediate connection, or even to the community of which one is a member.”[1] I understand that definition as I feel it every time I see injustice in front me, be it in my own surroundings or in world at large. As a matter of fact, my anger at injustice has been a major driving force in my life. It has helped me maintain my determination to serve those who have been marginalized, and impacted by injustice, in some of the hardest parts of the world.
Anger at injustice may be the spark that serves as an impetus for actions but angershould never manifest in the action itself. In other words, I believe that when we see injustice we need to do something about it—but that doing has to be with love, kindness, respect, and generosity of spirit. Otherwise, if we allow anger to dictate our actions, we end up becoming the very thing that we are trying to fight against to start with. To make real and healthy transformation from injustice to justice we need to utilize compassion rather than anger, and understanding rather than ignorance.
Recently, however, I had to question all these notions when I was faced with an act of manipulation and violation on a very personal level. In a moment of pain, I reached out to the person where the violation happened in her place for perspective and counsel. To my surprise, she answered saying “concepts of right-doing and wrongdoing always cause suffering so I can’t deal with it.” She continued and explained that she feels everyone is ultimately “innocence seeking peace.” That includes, in her description, fathers who raped their children, husbands who cheated on their wives, and definitely my own encounter with injustice.
Well, her answer left me perplexed and even disoriented for a while. It didn’t make sense to me. The world I live in has right-doings and wrongdoings. The acts of rapists are simply wrong and the raped victims have faced injustice. The act of stealing, lying, killing, manipulating—just to mention a few—are fundamentally wrong. To equate all wrongdoings and right doings as the same, and brushing everything together as “innocence meeting peace” felt cruel. And that “cruelty” was covered in the name of “love,” which makes it even harder to accept, as it represents the betrayal of love itself.
Love is not stupid and it is not blind to injustice. Love, as I see it, is clear and truthful. Through love we can address wrongdoings and do something about it. But to brush off injustice in the name of love is an insult to love itself. In other words, when we see something wrong, we have to confront it. Seeing and acknowledging wrongdoing is part of the healing process for the victim and the aggressor alike. And doing that with compassion is what leads to true healing.
I didn’t think my anger could transcend into compassion towards those who have committed injustice until I met a certain 16-year-old young Iraqi woman. She told me how she appealed to her rapist moments before the rape by looking at him in the eyes and saying: “Please, please don’t rape me. Don’t you have a heart?” At that moment, he looked her in the eye and said, “My heart died long time ago,” and then he proceededto rape her.
When I heard that story from the girl herself, I had tears in my eyes and a painful ache in my heart. But the emotion of hurt wasn’t only for her–it was for her rapist, as well. You see, her soul is intact even though she was violated. It is he who has experienced “soul death” and that is the saddest thing in life. So today, I cry for him, as well. But that does not mean I think he is “innocence trying to meet peace,” and thus should do nothing despite him committing such violation. What peace is that? As much compassion as I have for him, I also think he needs to face justice, go ontrial, and serve whatever service necessary to allow understanding,
That woman I reached out to is a very spiritual person and that is why I reached out to her. And, in truth, “love for all” and “all is good” are concepts that I hear often from people in the spiritual Western world. Allow me to clarify something: being ungrounded in values reflects being out of touch with the reality of this world and irritates the heck out of people who suffer real injustice in the world. If I tell all the people that I have encountered in my life who have faced more horrible stories than my pen can write about that all is “innocence seeking peace,” I will lose any connection to them, to their real pain, and to their real stories. And I will definitely lose all respect! Spirituality is beautiful but only when grounded in this earth and this reality. For when it is not, it leads to more disconnection than connection between not only individuals but cultures and nations as well. So for those who are out there, please come home to this earth. The world needs you to show up and be fully present in this reality.
Back to the man who had the courage to talk about his anger–thank you for seeing and hearing those who are suffering. And make sure that when you act against injustice, you do it with clarity, justice, and most importantly love and compassion. That is the only way we can make a difference in the world. And for me, What I experienced recently was great pain indeed. But that pain is no longer there and I am left with lessons that helped me grow and scars that will always remind me that life is ultimately beautiful and love is indeed bigger than all.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
