We believe that the world we see is the real world. From moment to moment, we believe that what our eyes (and ears and hands and noses) tell us is reality. It doesn't, from moment to moment, occur to us that the world we see is one of perception: what we choose to see, or what we allow ourselves to see. We think that the world we see with our eyes is objective reality. We believe that there is a "me" and then there is an "everyone else." And we draw that world into divisions: the bad guys and the good guys. I am, of course, a good guy. It's the other person who has the problem. It's the other guy who's wrong. It's the other guy who needs to be put in his place or taught a lesson or punished or who "needs killin'". If I can overlook his deeds -- the ones that cause what I call harm -- then I am being forgiving. And I am letting him get away with something, even though he "deserves" some comeuppance. But I am generous and kind, so I forgive him. Which just goes to show you how good I am. And you know what, I am still good if I decide not to be so charitable. Because if I get mad at him, and, moreover, if I take some action against him, it's understandable, because he "had it coming." Because he's the bad guy, I am still the good guy whether or not I decide to forgive him or not. As the good guy, it's my right to bestow or withhold forgiveness. Because that's reality.
The problem here -- quotation marks aside, because we've all felt this way, admittedly or not -- is the assumption beneath all of it, that attack is justified. (Well, mine is. Because it's an answer to what was clearly a wrongdoing, and wrongdoings need answering.) Attack, we think, is justified, because my view about what that guy did is justified. That is, if my view is based on perception. Which, if I attempt to justify attack, it is. Perception is what keeps us seeing and living in a world based on fear and separation, which doesn't reflect the reality - the actual one - that we are all one. As The Course in Miracles says, if we see a world where attack of any sort is justified, it is because we are using our perception -- the view of a world full of attackers and victims -- to justify our own attack, or even our instinct to attack. In other words, if I see you as attacking me, it is only to justify my attack against you. The attack may be with weapons or even words. It might just be about feelings. If I feel anger at you, that is a form of attack, if a quiet one. It is all the same in content if not in form. It all points to my perception that you and I are separate, and that we are vulnerable, and that if one of us is right it means that one of us is wrong.
To be clear, no one is advocating a free-for-all on crime. No one is saying that a murderer shouldn't be removed from society or that a thief be made to repay his debts. What is being said, however, is that once you have moved from assessment of the deed to assessment of the person, you have put yourself in the position of the divine arbiter -- God, the Universe, whatever you prefer to call it -- who places a value on the person. In reality, I am pretty sure none of us has enough knowledge of another human being to decide whether they are a valuable person or not. A man is not merely the sum total of his actions. So, in reality, where we are talking about the value of a person, each one of us is love, each one of us is part of the whole, and no one else has the right or the capability to bestow a mantle of relative value to the rest of us. And if we're seeing through those eyes -- the ones that tell us that, in reality, every person deserves to be loved -- we can address the action, surely. But we can't address the value of the person. Keeping that in mind, we are more likely to come up with compassionate answers to form (in the present case, the murder or the theft).
If you believe that someone has sinned against you (and I'm using the term "sin" colloquially rather than Biblically), it is because you have decided that you live in a world where sin is possible. In reality, attacks aren't possible, because in reality we are love, we are reflections of the divine which made us. But we don't see that world -- that real world. We see the world we want to see: one where attack is real, where hate is real, where anything that isn't love is real. Why would we want to see this awful world, instead of actual reality, where none of these things are real? Because to see a world full of hatred, resentment, jealousy, and fear justifies our hatred, resentment, jealousy, and fear. The choice to see this illusory, terrible world is what lets us see it. It isn't real. We just think it is, because we still think hate is real, because we need to justify our own hate. We need to justify our own hate because we need to keep ourselves safe. We need to attack. We need to defend. This is why we fight.
No one is saying that you should not defend your body when it is attacked. The difference is this: you do not need to defend yourself. Your self is fine. It cannot be attacked. It cannot be harmed. It needs no defense. If you need to fend off an attack, it is because a body is attacking you. A person isn't. A person can't, whether they think they can or intend to or not. Only a person's body can attack your body. And you have every right to fend off or discourage a bodily assault, just as you have every right to ask that justice be served if someone steals from you. But there is no reason to perpetrate punishment -- attack -- on a person. In reality, a person's self cannot be attacked, because in reality, a person is love, just as you are, and love neither attacks nor suffers it. But if you and your enemy -- so-called, because there are no enemies in love -- believe in attack, then refrain from attacking the person. Defend an action, but don't attack a person. That is the first step toward undoing the perception of reality and toward the knowledge of reality, which is love. In other words, decry and take action about a deed. But remind yourself that a person is not capable of evil. Only of a mistake. It is your perception that makes it evil. Nothing is anything without the label you give it.
The reason we fight is to justify our impulse to fight, because we want to believe that we are separate from each other. We don't want to deny our impulse -- we think it is inevitable, because this is just the way the world works. That's just reality, we think. It's not, though. It is the reality we have made in our resistance to actual reality. If we continue to perceive the world as a place of attack, and some people as worthy of attack, then there will always be attack. But if we can move our perception to knowledge, view others' attacks as mistakes or need for healing, then we will begin to see reality, which is love. And we won't even feel the need to attack back, much less attack first.
No comments:
Post a Comment