In today’s world, talk about love is everywhere. People declare love for one another and engage in beautiful, idealistic dialogues about love. Yet, amidst all this talk, something seems deeply amiss. This widespread discussion often rings hollow—as mere "hocus-pocus." The truth is glaringly obvious: love appears scarce, while hate saturates our global fabric.
The Reality of Hate
Hatred is deeply entrenched in the structures that define our world today. Religions hate one another; nations clash with animosity; political parties and social classes harbor resentment. Upon closer inspection, the sources of hate are staggering in number and intensity. This ceaseless buildup of hatred periodically ignites into devastating world wars. In fact, over the past three thousand years, humanity has engaged in nearly five thousand wars.
The Failure of Traditional Teaching
Who bears responsibility for this relentless cycle of conflict? Ironically, it is those constantly preaching about love, kindness, and compassion. While hate is never formally taught, it thrives with greater vigor and vitality than the preached love. The conventional education on love—who to love and how—is ultimately inadequate and superficial. Both love and hate are innate qualities; they are part of us from birth.
The Miracle of Awareness
A fundamental shift is needed. Instead of teaching love as a concept to be followed, we ought to cultivate awareness—awareness of whatever arises within us, whether hate or love. The crux of this teaching is simple yet profound: Be aware. Before any emotion—love or hate, anger or compassion—arises fully, be conscious of it. Let every feeling grow out of your awareness.
Awareness itself is a transformative force. It has the miraculous ability to dissolve all that is ugly and transform it into beauty—without requiring any effort beyond simply being aware.
Transformation Through Experimentation
Consider experimenting with awareness in daily life:
If anger arises and you observe it with awareness, it diminishes and eventually vanishes.
Hate, when met with conscious awareness, dissipates completely.
Over time, you will discover that the cloud of hatred lifts, revealing a fragrance of compassion, kindness, and love in its place.
Similarly, when love is noticed with awareness, it strengthens and deepens.
Awareness works like magic. It provides a clear standard for distinguishing virtue from sin: whatever deepens through your awareness is virtue, and whatever fades away through awareness is sin. Importantly, acts themselves are neither sinful nor virtuous; it is your level of awareness that determines their impact.
Freedom Through Non-Repression
The beauty of awareness lies in its gentle, non-repressive nature. You do not need to suppress or fight hate, anger, or jealousy. Nor should you force yourself to abandon these feelings. Instead, by maintaining a continuous thread of awareness through all your experiences and actions, you will find these negative emotions melting away naturally in the light of conscious attention.
This method is not a matter of belief but of direct personal experimentation. You may be amazed to discover how certain shadows within you cannot hold their ground before awareness and simply disappear. Through persistent honest practice, you will come to understand what is truly beneficial or harmful for you.