Hatred holds no place in the Vampyre heart

Posted by Mikal on the original forum:

It's come to my attention over the years that a lot of folk who embark on this path start out with what amounts to a lot of anger and even hatred in their hearts - usually as a result of having been mistreated by some band of misfits, or some bullies in school, or by society at large. And while these feelings are entirely normal to a certain extent, it's important for the seeker to really understand that hatred holds no place in the vampyre heart.

This isn't just Mikal up on a soap box preaching for unconditional love. Instead, it is my attempt to communicate one of the most important things I've learned on this long and winding road. It is simply this:

Love is the reason.

I've said it before, and for those who have read TEACHINGS OF THE IMMORTALS, it is a recurring theme, even if not always expressed in those exact words.

It would obviously be impossible to communicate the full complexity of what is really Intended by the words "unconditional love." But in a nutshell, unconditional love is the only state from which a human brain/mind can evolve to the next level. Put simply: one has to evolve within the self before one can evolve beyond the self.

Well WTF does THAT mean, Mikal?
It means that while a seeker might be able to use anger as a motivator and even a catalyst for change, the seeker can never really use "hatred" for any positive outcome, because hatred is the core root of violence, aggression and the black hole that lies at the heart of the human condition. If you have ever really (truly) hated some one or some thing or some idea, I believe you will understand what I mean by a "black hole." It is a state of being that is all-consuming - destroying even that little speck of light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. People who truly hate are the ones who go out and blow up schools or become suicide bombers or shoot up a theater full of innocent people because maybe someone called them a "sissy" back in high school, or maybe their perverse Uncle Dick put his dick where it didn't belong and they are forever traumatized and full of anger and hate and the blackness that exists in the void beyond the universe itself. In all likelihood, they even feel quite "righteous" about their hatred - it is an earmark of their identity, and they believe (falsely) that if they were without that hatred, they would somehow cease to exist in the way they know themselves.

This, too, is part of the programming put onto one by the dayshine world. I won't bother going into the specifics - they should be obvious - but I want to stress that what happened to you then was then, and what happens to you now is the only Now you will ever know. The one who is full of hatred for what happened in his/her past is living in that past - and when you think about it, that's really very twisted and sick, because it's like reliving the darkness from day to day, year to year, taking the anger and pain and hurt with one into the future, when it could just as easily be dumped along side the road with the words... "That was then, this is now."
I really don't care what "happened" to make a hateful man into a hateful man. It doesn't really matter "why" so-and-so shot up a school or strapped a bomb to his chest and walked into a crowded mall. What matters is that the man clearly missed his own opportunity for spiritual evolution, and in his hatred (and supreme self-importance) made the decision to "punish" others for his own shortcomings or sexual impotence or fill-in-the-blank. What matters is how this kind of thing can be avoided. I'm not just referring to the high profile media cases such as Sandy Hook and Colorado, but to the every day aspects of life which create both suicidal madmen and homicidal madmen.

The key to any and all of this is a deep understanding of what is meant by unconditional love. Contrary to popular new age beliefs, "unconditional love" isn't some mindless state of being wherein one frolicks with unicorns and runs around acting like a bliss ninny. Unconditional love is actually one of the easiest ways to understand what is really meant by my use of the word "Duality" - a state wherein 2 equally viable (or volatile) things may exist side by side without either threatening the sovereignty of the other. As it applies to unconditional love... it is entirely possible to have unconditional love for someone, and simultaneously not like them in the least. Eh? What?

It's like this: I can have deep empathy (another way of describing unconditional love) for someone like Jeffrey Dahmer (sp?), but in the same moment I would not hesitate to administer the lethal injection should the task fall to me. Why? Because it's entirely possible to love the core breath of Life which IS the person, but to condemn the actions of that person through and through. (Yes, I know Jeffrey is dead, but he's still the poster child for what NOT to do in life). Bringing this down to a more personal level - as the seeker progresses on the path, it becomes possible to have unconditional love even for those who have wronged us.

With that said, it doesn't mean we go invite the bully to dinner (though it's a test of conviction if you think you need to). What it does mean is getting some things straight in your head. Whatever the bully or bullies did to you really had nothing to do with YOU, but everything to do with their own limitations, fears, self- loathing and so the list goes on. When you are on the receiving end of that kind of bullying, of course it FEELS personal, but it's really about "them" and what is ultimately "wrong" with them - it has nothing to do with you. Really, really. If you could get inside the bully's head (no, not with an ice pick), you would find yourself face to face with a pathetically frightened, self-absorbed zombie who uses others as a target so as to mask his own inadequacies.

When you really *see* the depth of despair and emptiness in this type of person, you cannot help but experience empathy and compassion for that core spark of life which has been so damaged - but at the same time, you would not hesitate to club them over the head if you observed them bullying others in the Now. This is both unconditional love and duality, working together to provide the seeker with a workable sense of balance. You may think you can thrive on hatred and anger, but eventually you will find that the black hole of hatred will pull you in entirely and there will be nothing left of you but an empty shell that has become the very thing it loathes: another bully, another zombie whose hunger can never be satisfied.
Unconditional love isn't some doe-eyed state of nirvana. Instead, it is a lot of work - and it comes as a result of a conscious decision to release the hatred we might feel for someone, or a particular group. I realize it's popular for hard-core Pagans to "hate" hard-core Christians, but in the bigger picture, that mindset will only end up creating the conflict and confusion which have led to violence, war and death throughout history. As seekers, you simply cannot afford the luxury or the indulgence of your hatred - because when it consumes you, the "bad guys" have won, and they have succeeded in putting THEIR program onto you, by coercing you to mirror their mindset. And aside from who wins or loses, you simply don't have the time or energy to spare nursing your hatred - and when you are honest with yourself, you cannot help but admit that hatred does require a lot of nurturing - something worth examining.

Just words. Use them if you can.
The next time you feel great anger or hatred for someone or some thing, stop for a moment and ask yourself if there is any one single thing you can find about the object of your hatred that might dispel the gravity of the black hole. Can you see that perhaps they are sadly ignorant and should be pitied rather than hated? Can you see that their programming is what drives them and not any real qualms with you personally? Can you employ the old cliche of walking a mile in their shoes in order to better understand what made them who/what they are? If you can do any of these things, you will create a window of opportunity to experience unconditional love.

Allow me to repeat: you don't need to like them or condone what they do. You simply need to have unconditional love for all living things, for it's only in doing so that the seeker annihilates the black hole and creates a window of opportunity for personal evolution beyond the existing paradigm.
Obviously this is a vastly complex subject (yet at the same time utterly simple - another duality). Questions or disagreements welcome. And FWIW, this topic would have fit just as well into The Darker Teachings - because it is usually a high point of controversy and even inner conflict. It's one of those rabbit holes that, when you fall in, takes you deeper than you will be comfortable going... at least at first. That's okay. Love the ride.

You can love someone unconditionally and still feel the urge to strangle them until their eyes pop out. And I'm not even saying it would be necessarily "wrong" if you were to do that under the circumstances you've outlined - in defense of a loved one. It's a savage universe and if someone threatens your life or the life of those you love, you can love them unconditionally WHILE you are strangling them until their eyes pop out. (That's duality in action.)
... the only problem being, there are consequences to every action, and the law often favors the criminal above the victim.

Loving unconditionally doesn't imply pacifism, but actually promotes responsibility for one's actions - meaning that if someone crosses a line, they have abdicated all responsibility for their own actions. To bring it down to more practical situations, it's one thing if a bully just hurls insults and parades his ignorance around the soccer field. It's another matter altogether if the bullying becomes physical - at which point all bets are off. The moment someone threatens your person, they are inviting you to defend yourself. It's unfortunate (and deadly dangerous) when such confrontations turn physical, because generally speaking bullies are physically stronger than their victims (it's why they're bullies). If that is recognized to be the case - if one is outnumbered or simply weaker than the bully - it must be understood that there is absolutely no shame in walking away. What must be remembered is that bullies try to force confrontation because they usually know they can "win" - at least a physical confrontation. The deck is already stacked.

The seeker chooses to smile and say, "I'm sorry your life is so unhappy, Mr. Bully, and I'm sorry for whatever made you what you are." Even if you don't say it out loud, KNOWING it can save your life and your sanity. Confrontation and conflict are two of the biggest programs one must face in the dayshine world. As one of my teachers said to me long before many of you were born... "First I will teach you how to fight. Then I will teach you how NOT to fight."

The bully is already defeated, withered and dead inside. Know that.

I love this post. I think it's really important, especially in today's world where we're aiming our nuclear cocks at each other every ten seconds and people in power are fomenting racial and other kinds of hatred around every corner while the insidious program of trying to be "politically correct" is killing our individuality and our creativity left and right so we all become like the Borg (you will be assimilated). "They different from us! Go beat with stick!" Utter caveman mentality brought to the 21st century. Ugh.

I can see what Mikal meant about the unconditional love part. I'd argue it's not necessarily what we would call "love." He did call it "empathy" and I think that's a lot closer. If you have the perspective of an immortal, one who can see beyond the programs to the bigger picture, empathy probably comes far more naturally than to a mortal. At the very least, and immortal would have the last laugh over those bullies and bad guys who tend to come and go in a person's life and cause havoc and then disappear. That's not to say that that is "unconditional love" or even "empathy." That's just having the longevity to know better than them and to survive them. The concept is there, though, that anyone who can shift outside the box can see the petty drama for what it is. Mortals, stuck in the black pit of anger or hate, can't pull themselves out of that state enough to step back and say, "OK, I'm me no matter what. I can let what others do affect me in a negative way or a positive way or not at all. It's my choice." I would think this would be part of the art of letting go. I'm sure there is a post about that from Mikal (he was very thorough ).

Same with the hypothetical Jeffery Dahmer, situation: You have that "outside the box" perspective, you can't really hold Dahmer's actions against him, and yet he was by all accounts a terrible person. Yet he was still a person. The key is that from that outside perspective, you can put yourself in someone else's shoes, you can understand their actions even if you revile what they've done and have no problem giving that proverbial lethal injection. This takes the power away from the bullies, IMHO. I was bullied quite a lot in middle and high school and even into college I met the occasional asshole who thought it was their life's mission to make fun of me. Their collective actions and words probably fucked me up for all time but I can see in retrospect that there really must have been things that they either didn't like about themselves that they saw in me that made them lash out or they had some kind of indoctrination in their upbringing that didn't allow for certain behaviors to be acceptable to them and when they saw me perform those behaviors they took out their insecurities on me. I was always pretty loud and obnoxious in my younger years (think it was probably mostly a cry for attention if I had to psychoanalyze myself) and I think it irritated a lot of people but I also think maybe some people saw it as a challenge to the way they'd been told to keep quiet and play nice and blend in (fuck that shit BTW, LOL).

OK, I realize I'm rambling so sorry but great post to pick out and share, Snow Wolf!!

Thanks Rasa all good points and as you say, the person who lashes out violently is must often not seeing or owning their own shit, it’s so much easier to lash out at another person who has obviously triggered them, even if just a little bit.

As I read Mikal’s post I pondered on the state of the planet, again. Seems to me there is a lot of buzz (still) about narcissists and empaths and all the colours in between. Are there more narcissists on the planet? Maybe social media and the rest has brought it more to everyone’s attention or maybe social media has brought out those attributes more in people. Attributes that may have remained more dormant in other circumstances. I don’t know. We all have a little bit of everything within us.

For me I have always been a huge psychic sponge sucking up everyone’s energies and feeling the pain and suffering of others deeply. So much so that it makes me quite sick and nauseous at times. No matter what tactics I employ sone energy always gets through, it is the fabric of my  being. But on the flip side there is something positive here as well and it helps me as a seeker to access other realms a bit easier.

The other day I read a quote that stopped me in my tracks momentarily:

“How you make others feel about themselves, says a lot about you.”

And so, of course,  how OTHERS make you feel about yourself says a lot about THEM.

It is good to be challenged at times but for me, Kindness always is king.

Probably one of the most impactful posts of Mikal to me. I too was bullied, I was quite small for my age and quiet (the extreme opposite of you Rasa ) throughout school so it was easy to get picked on. What I hated the most wasn't even getting bullied per se because at that young age I realised already that the bully despised himself and not me. It was my friends literally standing next to me and doing nothing because the bully was also a friend of the group. Oh well, it shaped me and we are friends today as he probably started trying to love himself more.

I'm also a "psychic sponge", hearing stuff like school shootings/homicides/etc leaves me so stressed out that I go on a frenzy that can last days. It makes me absolutely disgusted, and what disgusts me the most is that they are just people like me. That humans can do so much mayhem is just unnerving. Just like you, it makes me sick to my stomach so these days I try to avoid the news the best I can.

This is the thing I struggle the most with. I've always been a walking bully magnet. I'm quiet, physically unattractive, and eccentric/quirky. I hate people. People bully me, then I hate them. It isn't complicated.

Sure, I know I'll ultimately win when I transmogrify and they eat dirt. Sometimes I still want to see the look on their stupid face when i transmogrify and evolve beyond the capabilities of their flaccid imagination, and they finally realize death has come for them, and the part that hurts the most is when they realize it didn't have to be that way. Then I blast off to the stars and leave them in the dirt, hopeless and alone. Then the spindly fingers of the black fog of death creep in and surround their body and slowly begin to waft over it, and all they can do is watch and know this is it - they are about to be swallowed by death..

But that's the black hole. I know exactly what was meant by that. I've experienced black hole hatred before; it takes everything away from you and even people you like or love can feel the presence of it even if they don't know that's what it is, and they find it unsettling. I can't let them suck me into the black hole with them, to spread their hate virus to me so I go down with them. That's exactly what they want.

That can't be my motivator. Love is the reason. Hatred is not my motivator, it's just something I really struggle with.

But now you know I wasn't kidding. This really is the part I struggle the most with. I think I saw this post back on the original forum and thought "Screw that noise. I'll have hate in my heart if i want to after everything i've been through" - so at least now i'm starting to teeter in the right direction.

And Uthred: I don't think I can relate to being a psychic sponge (I think I know what you mean though) but I also CANNOT watch the news. It gets me way too upset. It's designed to do that anyway.