Beware what you HATE

We're often reminded that we become what we love. This is true. However, there's another side of this that we should all be very aware of: we also become what we HATE.

Indeed, mystics through the ages have sagely advised us to be very careful of what we hate; because we will be defined by what we hate, as much as by what we love.

I realize that this may sound a bit scary -- but it's not meant to be. It's actually very simple and easy to grasp. When we hate something, we may have perfectly legitimate reasons for that hatred -- we may be 100% "justified" in our hatred. But that hatred is still a form of attraction; a negative one, yes, but attraction still.

This is why many people invariably start to mirror those that they hate; they end up doing many of the same things that those that they hate have done to them. It's not out of choice; it's because that groove of attention has been developed for years and years.

It sounds impossible, at times, to simply let go of hate; there are those around us who seem absolutely worthy of as much hate as we can offer. And so the very idea that we shouldn't hate these people -- the monsters among us -- is advice that most of us cannot accept. It also may suggest, to some, that we shouldn't even care about it; as if it's "okay" for someone to harm you or others; after all, if you don't or can't hate them, then isn't it like saying that it's "okay" that they're acting that way?

No. That's the misunderstanding worth avoiding. When you hate someone, you pollute your inner space with that hatred; and it starts to invade you, in a spiritual sense, from the inside. Hating others is harmful to you; it drains you of your life energy and fills you with toxic sludge that offers you no energy, no momentum.

I'm not saying that, instantly, you must stop hating those that have harmed you, are harming others, or are simply walking, talking, breathing, monsters.

I'm saying that your hate is going to harm YOU more than it harms them; the hate will erode you, like rust -- and it will not, in fact, have any impact on the other. Why should it?

The absolute BEST way that you can handle your hatred of another is to turn it into a spiritual exercise. The other -- the object of your hatred -- is giving you an opportunity to be more aware; to watch your inner space. The other is a trigger; a catalyst. Now it's up to you: if you react, you simply hate -- and you waste the opportunity. But if you watch with alertness and grasp the spaciousness around your hate, then you begin to go beyond it -- and you leave, in your wake, the person who is worthy of your hate.

When you hate someone, use it as an opportunity to go beyond hate. Don't repress it, don't reject it, don't try and hide it away in the basement of your soul. Watch it with alertness; with conscious spaciousness. Turn it into your meditation.

Reality is the best meditation.