The Road To Becoming A Warrior Part 8
The pattern I described in which we educate the instinctive through thought to give us new ability is the same process we go through in all things we want to make a part of us.
This is an interesting realization. When we humans know about something in an intimate way, it becomes part of us. We do this with objects as well. We get attached to them. The higher the attachment the more the objects become part of us. They become part of our identity. The real Star Trek fan has made that world and that kind of thinking and philosophy part of themselves.
This can be a negative thing as well as a positive. We can make hate part of us as well. (Struggles with the heart) But this is the way we function. Not only do we make objects and abilities part of us, we make many things part of us. One of the most interesting things we make part of ourselves is others. Our relationships with others work in this same way. It is one of the things people find fault in about human relationships.
When you do not know a person they may seem interesting to you or not. They are not your type. But if you find something interesting you may want to meet that person and start to get to know them. As you get to know them things are very exciting. People marry in the midst of that excitement. They fall in love. But they then start to take each other for granted.
This is normal because this is what we do. Once that person is part of us we take the relationship for granted. An object cannot disagree with you. An ability will never leave you. But a person is different thing all together. You both want to make the other person part of self. But to do that you have to iron out all the differences between you. You have to in many cases fight for dominance so that you are not absorbed.
When one person takes the relationship and bond for granted while the other does not, you are in for conflict. Oh but isn’t love grand?
Empathy is when we can put ourselves in the shoes of another. We can feel their pain or pleasure. It is not so much that can actually feel their pain or pleasure, but that is not important. We are trying to make their pain or pleasure part of us.
When two people work exactly right together they have made each other part of each other. This is the essence of love. Empathy is the purest form of love because it allows us to include many in to ourselves. In fact Jesus told us to love everyone as we love self.
Isn’t that an interesting idea? To love others as you love yourself can be taken farther: To love everyone else as self. To make them part of who you are. An ultimate form of empathy. Also very difficult to do.
That is what love is. It is rationally explainable in the very words we use to describe it and yet so many want to make a mystery of it. Love is making something or someone part of you. In fact we can boil it down some more to: making something part of you is love.
It is as simple as that. And what do you want to do for yourself? Serve. You wish to fulfill your needs so you wish to fulfill the needs of that which you have made part of your being or self. Love and serve = include in to self and fulfill needs.
There is no such thing as a selfless act. For there be one you would have to do something by accident. An act done by accident can be considered selfless. But any act done with intent cannot by definition be selfless. The ego must exist if you want to do intentional acts. The self must exist.
Do not think of an altruistic act as selfless. It is selfish as hell. The person doing the act gets from the act usually more than they put in to it. A person rescuing someone from a fire is not doing it selflessly and thank goodness. The person doing the rescuing has to put themselves in to the task. Often they could do nothing else and live with themselves.
Mother Teresa was giving of self and she received. She could do nothing else in her eyes and be in good standing with god and most importantly herself.
So once we have eliminated greed and hate and all the negative aspects of self, modified our behaviour and have fought off our demons we are open to higher thought. We can also love ourselves. Because what is the use of trying to make others part of you if you don’t love yourself? You can’t love them. You will harm them as you harm yourself.
A lot of people have said that you can’t love others if you do not love self and this is why. Love is inclusion. It is not ego which must be dropped. It is the exclusion of others.
And does it not make sense? If all things are intimately connected, why should we not want be closer and reunify? It seems only natural that we would.
Fear, of course, is our enemy. And it is rightly there in us because strangers are an unknown quantity. Until we know them we do not know their motives. It is a brave person who can accept strangers as brothers and sisters. Yet this is what is required if we all want to live in peace. The less we make the stranger the “other” and pit us against them, the less likely they are to do the same to us.
I can love all people, in principal. I can include them all. But how far can I go with it? If we were to grieve for every person who dies or is suffering our grief would be never ending and yet that is what we should do until the last person stops suffering. But that is too much for any one person to take on.
Societies find a focal point to pour out their grief on. We pick celebrities for communal grieving. They are a social safety valve. We cannot pour out or love for those we know nothing about, so we do our grieving socially by picking people or events we all know to communally and sometimes globally grieve for. This is why we have developed deities like Jesus who is supposed to be so enlightened as to be able to feel compassion for all individuals and yet rejoice for all at the same time.
We can certainly do that in principal concerning the entire world and in practice when confronted by real suffering. If we each do our part to help those who are suffering around us, it wouldn’t be such a big burden. And that of course is the ideal. It is the only best we can do.
So this is why the messages of the sages and wise men and gurus and messiahs is love. We are part of the all, other people’s suffering adds to our own. We must try to include as many others as we can in to self. That way we are all served as we serve and we can all have peace and security.
The three fold laws of the Wicca tell us that whatever negative we do to others will come to us three fold. It also tells us the good we do comes back to us three fold. The law of Karma tells us a similar thing. Good deeds bring good karma upon you, hurtful deeds bring bad karma. Every religion has seen this. Good works are rewarded by the Christian god. Bad deeds punished. The numbers, three fold, or double are irrelevant.
Is this just wishful thinking? As it turns out it is not. If ones actions cause conflict, the effect is a retaliatory reaction. If one’s actions are benevolent, they are more likely to receive benevolence in return. The person who understands this knows that they themselves benefit more from positive acts than they do from negative acts. This is just nature. The golden rule has been sighted by every culture in the world in one way or other. The most well known version in western society being: Do unto others as you would they do unto you. In this version you are using yourself as a guide.
I wrote a hub called: The Golden Rule Explored. It details many other forms of this moral guide.
Removing the negative aspects of ego and id makes it very unlikely that you could do others harm and it increases your chances at a life of peace by adding to the peace of others.
