Vachon Imagined

It is reasonable to want to stop hate.

It is even plausible to believe that we can.

We want to stop the effects of hate, but we cannot stop hate itself. We are simply not that powerful.

We cannot destroy life.

But we can alter it.

We can alter it when our hearts soften and our minds relax.

Then the mind that once delivered anger begins to deliver peace.

It is one life moving in countless directions.

I am governed by it.

You are governed by it.

Life.

Spirit.

Love.

There is nothing else.

When we try to manage hate, when we try to rid people of hate, it backfires. We have given something our love and attention, and then we resist what we have created.

The world is your visual marker.

Your inner world is your reaction to that world.

But it isn’t happening outside of mind.

Nothing is.

So when we punish hate, we may stop something temporarily. We may prevent an action. We may protect a person. We may create a boundary.

But hate itself is a state of mind.

People are allowed to walk in it.

We don’t have a say in that.

It is their right to hate.

And it is also their right to stop when they are done.

So what do we do in the meantime?

We keep our hearts free of it.

Through peace.

Through surrender.

Through relaxation.

Through a strength that comes from on high.

A boldness.

A courage.

The courage to withstand hate without becoming hateful.

The courage to withstand resistance without becoming resistance.

The courage to withstand the self without believing the self is all there is.

The courage to withstand any person without needing to destroy them.

This is not weakness.

This is strength.

Because the goal is not to defeat hate.

The goal is to remain free from it.