Licking the Razor's Edge (2015)

Step 03: FORGIVE (the verb)
“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal
with the intent of throwing it at someone else.
While you do so, it is you alone who gets
burned.” ~ inspired by Buddha
We are all programmed to fear those who might harm us, and a corollary of this innate
angst is the instinctual drive that persistently demands that we dislike or even hate those
people who have harmed us already. Simply put, the human ego believes that fearing
strangers who might hurt us, and disliking enemies who have already done so (and
therefore “probably will do so again”), is essential to our survival. And quite logically, if
the ego demands that we protect ourselves with our suspicions and our hatreds, it also
demands that we refuse to let our guard down – it demands that we refuse to reach out to
those with whom we are not yet familiar, and it demands that we refuse to forgive those
“enemies” with whom we already are.
And it is this fear-based “thinking” – and this fear-full dogma alone – that is the source of
all our wars, all our arguments, all our grudges and all our condemnations.
In its most extreme manifestations, fear inspires us to vengeful acts of physical violence,
irrational feelings of fervent hatred, and scathing exchanges of aggressive words. In its
less zealous forms, it manifests itself in bland neutrality in the face of evil, lifeless apathy
in the face of suffering, and ice-cold analysis (a.k.a. the coward’s “patience”) in the face
of injustice. In short, it is fear & fear alone that is responsible for all of humankind’s
most drastic failures, and it is fear & fear alone that keeps us from walking as the
champions of Love & Compassion that we could someday – maybe today – very well
become.
*We have been taught to respond to evil by attempting to destroy it, and yet trying to do
so has only encouraged evil to crawl into darker crevices; hiding from our wrath until
strong enough to lash out once again … Regardless of the form it takes, war has never
brought Peace – it has only inspired more war.
*We have been convinced that it is right to respond to criminals by publicly condemning
them and then locking them up, and yet doing so has only perpetuated the very
condemnation and lack of compassion that inspired their crimes in the first place. With
psyches further scarred by the lashings of our “justice”, our fear sends them trembling
into darker corners; where they wait lustily for the next chance to rob and steal and kill
again; all for one more chance to someday be pardoned … Imprisonment of
“undesirables” has never brought more security – it has only inspired more crime.
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