3 August 2014

If there was no love in this world, would we consider life worth living?

Imagine a little smiling baby looking at you while you’re looking at him. What do you feel?

Now think about someone experiencing hate wanting to kill another. How does that feel?

Now imagine that the little baby that you first saw is the person who is hateful and wants to kill.

Do you wonder how did that happen?

I don’t believe that baby’s naturally grow up hating and wanting to destroy another. I believe that hate is taught, it is indoctrinated in the minds and hearts of our new born baby’s. I feel this may be one of our worst crimes: the killing of innocence and opportunities for love in all of us.

But lets think a little more about this: If baby’s can be taught to hate, they can also be taught to love, they can be taught to care, to be compassionate. We can teach them to earn their way through life instead of trying to steal, we can teach them joy, noble values and skills that they can later trade to make a living.

If we teach our dear ones to be contributing members of our societies we could live in a world were hate and war would not have that big of a presence.

But what about an adult? What if the adult has already been corrupted internally with fear and hate? What if the adult already blames others for his misery? What if the adult is already lost and confused? What can we do?

I believe being the example of what we want the world to be like (Gandhi) is one of the best solutions we can provide. Why? Because many in this world have never been cared for, many in this world have not experienced much love or compassion and many were "not wanted children".

If we care for others, if we love in the face of hate, if we are compassionate in the face of attacks, the person attacking may see an option, and opportunity to be different.

Now, many would say: That sounds nice, but in practicality that wouldn’t work. What if they are bombarding your country? Are you going to be compassionate and let them kill your own? No, not necessarily. Love and compassion do not mean not taking actions to protect ourselves, it means that our motivations are not based on fear or the desire to destroy another.

In the Baghavat Gita we find a good description of the struggle of a warrior (Arjuna), who doesn’t want to go to war being guided by Krishna to do so. Krishna helps Arjuna see how going to war could actually be an act of love.

So, is war and killing then justified?

I believe that wanting to justify anything in itself is often a sign of us believing that what we are doing is bad. If we are clear that what we are doing is good, we would not need to justify (but not because we are sure that what we are doing is good, means that it is good).

I believe that if we come from a place of love for all, our perspective and our actions would be very different. What if we saw every human being in this world as part of us? What if we saw them as a loving member of our family? How would we feel about making the decision to kill them or go to war against them?

Depending on our beliefs some may still go to war, but I believe out of very different reasons than just hate, prejudice or fear. We may need to take difficult actions to protect ourselves, but if we do so, we would do them out of love.

Is it practical then to be compassionate and loving in this world? I believe so. It actually can help us to have a more wholesome perspective to every decision we make. Embracing all, can be a good moral compass on which we can evaluate our actions.

Maybe, just maybe there is a little innocent baby within all of us that is waiting to be let out to play and experience the world anew, with eyes of wonder, joy and playfulness; maybe there is within us a very afraid little baby that doesn’t know how to survive and do good.

In choosing compassion and love, we give the baby within us the opportunity to come out and play, we give the baby within us an opportunity to heal and see all of humanity as our brothers and sisters. When we choose compassion and love, we see how many of us are lost, just like we were and we would extend a hand to them. Some may take it and some may even want to cut it, but we would not stop in our attempts to help each of our family members come back to the heaven they had lost or never had, their inner place of love.

If we do so, I believe we would cry deeply from the recognition that we had been suppressing for years a beautiful part in us and we would seek to amend our ways helping many still hateful, go back to their souls. Together we would then start to build a new world for the living and for those that are yet to be born. Maybe we would also add these words to our US bills: In love we trust.

I believe if we all chose to love not matter what, we would know that we are good and valuable parts of existence. And if we felt this way, our self destructive behavior may fall apart from our psyche giving rise to the beautiful and good in all of us.

In what kind of world would we live in then? Would it be a better one? I believe so

Is it worth the effort? I think so

Would our life and that of our children benefit from our compassion and love? Yes, it would.

Would we elect our government leaders differently if we chose wisely from love and not from fear? I believe so.

If we had love as a standard to evaluate our actions, would we act better? Yes

And who else has more experience in loving, nurturing and embracing than women. They, by nature, are caring.

What if we had the world being led by either nurturing women or men with nurturing values? Would we act differently? I believe we would.

But many doubters would say: Women are not practical, they have no sense of how the world really works? Even if that is true, in what world would you prefer to live? In a place led by people that believe in a possible utopia, who choose to be the example of what they want to build, or in a world where we destroy the possibility of beauty and love for the protection and creation of material value? In which world would you want your children to grow up?

I dont’ think we need that many material things for us and our children to be happy anyway. And I believe if we were truly happy and loving we would not really be that materialistic as we would not see the material world as the source of our happiness.

That doesn’t mean we need to deny the material world, no not at all, but seeking material possessions would not be the main aim in our life. We would see material things as ways and tools to help us survive and grow, as tools to be creative and inventive, as tools to provide us with different ways to expand our capacities.

It seems to me that men are overrated as leaders in this world and women are underrated in their capacity to lead and create a better world. I vote to give women more positions of leadership.

Women hold the key to the door of a world of love, innocence and joy. We can all choose to protect and support their path as they walk towards opening that door. I vote for innocence to never be lost and I vote to get some of their hugs and kisses that many of us men want but pretend we do not.

Love, Women and War